IF you have been using javascript for a while you will know real quick that you cannot use $.ajax calls to receive a file from your server, which is a real bummer due to the fact that ajax calls just stream down the text data. I searched the web far and wide trying to find a solution to this and if you just simply need to download a file from your server, there is a really simple way to get it accomplished, just simply write this line into your javascript:
location.href = “path/to/api/call”
That will simply go out to your server and execute that on the server and get your file, as long as the response on the other side has headers marked up correctly with the “Content-Disposition” of “attachment: filename=file.whateverext”.
That is fine for simple file download, but you know at some point you are gonna want to pass parameters to your web server so I found a great jQuery plugin here: jQuery Download plugin This will allow you to post your data to the server as a hidden form submit and it works great minus one little issue, it doesn’t handle nested array’s at all, it just wraps them into the post string, so I modified it a little and create a git repo for it enjoy: My Modified jQuery plugin
