If you:
byte[] before sending to the response;InputStream;@ControllerAdvice picking up exceptions for you (or not).The code below is what you need:
@RequestMapping(value = "/stuff/{stuffId}", method = RequestMethod.GET)
public ResponseEntity<FileSystemResource> downloadStuff(@PathVariable int stuffId)
throws IOException {
String fullPath = stuffService.figureOutFileNameFor(stuffId);
File file = new File(fullPath);
long fileLength = file.length(); // this is ok, but see note below
HttpHeaders respHeaders = new HttpHeaders();
respHeaders.setContentType("application/pdf");
respHeaders.setContentLength(fileLength);
respHeaders.setContentDispositionFormData("attachment", "fileNameIwant.pdf");
return new ResponseEntity<FileSystemResource>(
new FileSystemResource(file), respHeaders, HttpStatus.OK
);
}
More on setContentLength(): First of all, the content-length header is optional per the HTTP 1.1 RFC. Still, if you can provide a value, it is better. To obtain such value, know that File#length() should be good enough in the general case, so it is a safe default choice.
In very specific scenarios, though, it can be slow, in which case you should have it stored previously (e.g. in the DB), not calculated on the fly. Slow scenarios include: if the file is very large, specially if it is on a remote system or something more elaborated like that - a database, maybe.
InputStreamResourceIf your resource is not a file, e.g. you pick the data up from the DB, you should use InputStreamResource. Example:
InputStreamResource isr = new InputStreamResource(new FileInputStream(file));
return new ResponseEntity<InputStreamResource>(isr, respHeaders, HttpStatus.OK);