Web Service return pdf file

[mmcmanus]

I've been working on a web service to return assort XML data, but know I wish to return a pdf file with a new method. How do I return the file as the result and not a link to the file?

Thanks all. Just getting used to 6 and all the new toys. Crash building a web service is one of them

[Adelo Herrero]

Can you return a byte array with the file content and save it in local?

Best regards.

[mmcmanus]

So how would you return a byte array then as part of the xml stream? Not sure I understand. I have tried writing to byte array, but nothing seems to return. When I was working in Developer I got a save file dialog. On a server nada that I could see.

Something along the lines of:

respondXML[new Object('file')] = plugins.file.writeFile(plugins.file.readFile(fileNameis), bytes,'application/pdf')

[ptalbot]

Or use Velocity's new web capabilities to do this: plugins.Velocity.createByteResponse(bytes, mimeType)

[ptalbot]

Actually to embed in XML, you will have to convert to Base64. XML is not a binary format!

[ptalbot]

It's also possible to save the file on the server somewhere in /application_server/server/webapps/ROOT/ in a subfolder subfolder and return a URL to that file (which will be something like: http://yourserverURL/subfolder/yourPDF.pdf)

[Adelo Herrero]

If the pdf is in the server, read it in a byte array.

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var bytes = plugins.file.readFile('big.jpg');

The return bytes in DATA section of XML

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var myXML = "....";
myXML+="<fileName>myFile.pdf</fileName>"
myXML+="<fileContent><![CDATA[" + bytes + "]]></fileContent>"
myXML+="..."


And in local side save "bytes" as a file:

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var f = plugins.file.convertToJSFile('myFile.pdf');
plugins.file.writeFile(f, bytes)


[ptalbot]

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myXML+="<fileContent><![CDATA[" + bytes + "]]></fileContent>"

will never work!

Because you take binary data and you concatenate to a String, so any non character bytes will be skipped and you will get garbage result...

You need to encode the byte array using Base64 encoding.
You can use Packages.org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64.encodeBase64(bytes) that will return a properly encoded String that you can then put into you CDATA section.

And on the receiving side, you will need to decode that Base64 String or course.

[Adelo Herrero]

Really; I need convert to base64. Just missing the most important :O

[mmcmanus]

Excellent help. Thank you. I think I may be on the right track now. I have it encoded and am testing the whole process today. I'll try to post the result when complete.

[mmcmanus]

This worked pretty well. Had some problems with getting the wholebyte array into cdata. And ended up at the clients request moving to just returning a link to the file. Which does cause two gets, but seems to be working better for them at the moment.

[ptalbot]

That's 2 request but the XML is much lighter so it shouldn't be a problem anyway (Bas64 encoding will make your data a lot bigger).
I think that's the best way to go.