I would suggest using a StreamingResponseBody since with it the application can write directly to the response (OutputStream) without holding up the Servlet container thread. It is a good approach if you are downloading a file very large.
@GetMapping("download")
public StreamingResponseBody downloadFile(HttpServletResponse response, @PathVariable Long fileId) {
FileInfo fileInfo = fileService.findFileInfo(fileId);
response.setContentType(fileInfo.getContentType());
response.setHeader(
HttpHeaders.CONTENT_DISPOSITION, "attachment;filename=\"" + fileInfo.getFilename() + "\"");
return outputStream -> {
int bytesRead;
byte[] buffer = new byte[BUFFER_SIZE];
InputStream inputStream = fileInfo.getInputStream();
while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
}
};
}
Ps.: When using StreamingResponseBody, it is highly recommended to configure TaskExecutor used in Spring MVC for executing asynchronous requests. TaskExecutor is an interface that abstracts the execution of a Runnable.
More info: https://medium.com/swlh/streaming-data-with-spring-boot-restful-web-service-87522511c071