How to open or download Excel file from server in richfaces

[darmstadter]

In my appliction the user may export a data table with Excel format, the excel file is created on the server and directly through servlet send back to user. But i don not know, how to do it. I have written the outputstream, aber i don't get the dialog" open or download" of Firefox. Somebody sags, that firefox don't support the download of Excel file, but with pdf file, it does not work too.

private static void downloadFile(String strfileName) {
 try {
 FacesContext context = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();
 // get ServletContext object
 ServletContext servletContext = (ServletContext) context
 .getExternalContext().getContext();
 // get the absolute path of the file
 String excelName = servletContext.getRealPath("/UploadFile") + "/"
 + strfileName;
 File exportFile = new File(excelName);
 HttpServletResponse httpServletResponse = (HttpServletResponse) FacesContext
 .getCurrentInstance().getExternalContext().getResponse();
 ServletOutputStream servletOutputStream = httpServletResponse
 .getOutputStream();
 httpServletResponse.setHeader("Content-disposition",
 "attachment; filename=" + strfileName);
 httpServletResponse.setContentLength((int) exportFile.length());
 httpServletResponse.setContentType("application/x-download");

 byte[] b = new byte[1024];
 int i = 0;
 FileInputStream fis = new java.io.FileInputStream(exportFile);
 while ((i = fis.read(b)) > 0) {
 servletOutputStream.write(b, 0, i);
 }
 } catch (IOException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 }
 FacesContext.getCurrentInstance().responseComplete();
 }

alternative:With h:outputLink, eg. a pdf file can be opened with new tab of firefox. I want to do as it too. Without h:outputLink, only with the servlet outputstream.

Hat anybody any ideas. Thanks in advance.

[utdrew]

You need to flush and close your output stream after the loop i.e.

servletOutputStream.flush();
servletOutputStream.close();

Drew

[darmstadter]

thanks for your replay, your are right. the stream must be flushed and closed.
i have tried, but it does not work either.

I have a question yet. After the write, what is happened on the client site? Should it show a download file dialog?

[david.spark]

Have you tried changing your code to

httpServletResponse.setContentType("application/vnd.ms-excel");

This should tell the browser that it's an Excel file (of course the OS on the PC needs to know what to do with .xls files :-)

There's a useful page, http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/mime-types.shtml, for relating files to their MIME types.

[nbelaevski]

Hi,

Files downloading doesn't work if you use AJAX. Can that be the case?

[darmstadter]

Thanks for your replies. nbelaevski hat right, that file downloading does't work with Ajax. I have tried with a contextMenu, if the user click menuItem, then call the jsFunction to download the file. But it doesn't work. With h:commandButton with action="download()", it works. My new question is, that how to download file with Ajax, it is practicable? or workaround.

[nbelaevski]

"darmstadter" wrote:
Thanks for your replies. nbelaevski hat right, that file downloading does't work with Ajax. I have tried with a contextMenu, if the user click menuItem, then call the jsFunction to download the file. But it doesn't work. With h:commandButton with action="download()", it works. My new question is, that how to download file with Ajax, it is practicable? or workaround.

Redirect to the file so that server will issue common HTTP request for it or use "server" modes of rich:* components.

[vejnovic]

look this link http://ahoehma.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/jsf-file-download/

[darmstadter]

Thank nbelaevski and vejnovic.. In ContextMenu and menuItem i have tried with submitMode="server", but it doesn't work