Force download GET request using axios

Question

I'm using vuejs 2 + axios. I need to send a get request, pass some params to server, and get a PDF as a response. Server uses Laravel.

So

axios.get(`order-results/${id}/export-pdf`, { params: { ... }})

makes successful request but it does not start force downloading, even though server returns correct headers.

I think this is a typical situation when you need to, say, form a PDF report and pass some filters to server. So how could it be accomplished?

Update

So actually I found a solution. However the same approach didn't work with axios, don't know why, that's why I used raw XHR object. So the solution is to create a blob object and user createUrlObject function. Sample example:

let xhr = new XMLHttpRequest()
xhr.open('POST', Vue.config.baseUrl + `order-results/${id}/export-pdf`, true)
xhr.setRequestHeader("Authorization", 'Bearer ' + this.token())
xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded")
xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer'

xhr.onload = function(e) {
  if (this.status === 200) {
    let blob = new Blob([this.response], { type:"application/pdf" })
    let link = document.createElement('a')
    link.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob)
    link.download = 'Results.pdf'
    link.click()
  }
}

Important: you should have array buffer as response type

However, the same code written in axios returns PDF which is empty:

axios.post(`order-results/${id}/export-pdf`, {
  data,
  responseType: 'arraybuffer'
}).then((response) => {
  console.log(response)

  let blob = new Blob([response.data], { type: 'application/pdf' } ),
      url = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob)

  window.open(url); // Mostly the same, I was just experimenting with different approaches, tried link.click, iframe and other solutions
})

Answer 1

You're getting empty PDF 'cause no data is passed to the server. You can try passing data using data object like this

  axios
    .post(`order-results/${id}/export-pdf`, {
      data: {
        firstName: 'Fred'
      },
      responseType: 'arraybuffer'
    })
    .then(response => {
      console.log(response)

      let blob = new Blob([response.data], { type: 'application/pdf' }),
        url = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob)

      window.open(url) // Mostly the same, I was just experimenting with different approaches, tried link.click, iframe and other solutions
    })

By the way I gotta thank you so much for showing me the hint in order to download pdf from response. Thank ya :)

                var dates = {
                    fromDate: 20/5/2017,
                    toDate: 25/5/2017
                }

The way in which I have used is,

axios({
  method: 'post',
  url: '/reports/interval-dates',
  responseType: 'arraybuffer',
  data: dates
}).then(function(response) {
  let blob = new Blob([response.data], { type: 'application/pdf' })
  let link = document.createElement('a')
  link.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(blob)
  link.download = 'Report.pdf'
  link.click()
})