CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptrestbrowserhttp-headershttprequest
IsmailS
IsmailS

Reputation: 10863

JavaScript - How to set request header for a browser GET

If we do window.location = "http://MyApi.com/Pdf";, browser does a GET of the URL http://MyApi.com/Pdf. But if we want to set authentication header of the request before doing GET of the URL because the server is a REST server and it doesn't support cookies. How to do this?

In all of the cases, I'm using $.ajax to call service but this time I need to show the response in a new window. Response is a PDF file content.

Thanks in advance.

Upvotes: 17

Views: 51293

Answers (6)

Umar Enesi Ibrahim
Umar Enesi Ibrahim

Reputation: 11

You may consider setting the header in beforeunload or onunload event handler

Upvotes: 0

malix
malix

Reputation: 3582

In more recent browsers, you might be able to use blobs:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<button onclick="tryit();">PDF</button>
<script>
    function tryit() {
        var win = window.open('_blank');
        downloadFile('/pdf', function(blob) {
            var url = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
            win.location = url;
        });
    }
    function downloadFile(url, success) {
        var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
        xhr.open('GET', url, true);
        xhr.setRequestHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + btoa("username:password"));
        xhr.responseType = "blob";
        xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
            if (xhr.readyState == 4) {
                if (success) success(xhr.response);
            }
        };
        xhr.send(null);
    }

</script>
</body>
</html>

In IE, ask the user:

window.navigator.msSaveOrOpenBlob(blob, 'readme.pdf');

P.S. You can test the backend in Node:

router.get('/pdf', function(req, res) {
  if(req.headers.authorization !== 'Basic dXNlcm5hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQ=') return res.status(403).send('Not allowed');
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'public', 'render.pdf'));
});
router.get('/', function(req, res) {
  res.render('index');
});

Upvotes: 11

Saurabh Kumar
Saurabh Kumar

Reputation: 16669

I think this is what you are looking for... Or correct me if i am wrong.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Setting_HTTP_request_headers

Upvotes: 2

Leon
Leon

Reputation: 4532

Does it have to be a GET?

The reason I am asking is that you could just have a POST form (to a target="_BLANK") that posts whatever but shows an embedded file in a new window. Of course this wouldn't solve the issue with your custom headers, but then since you can also POST using jquery.ajax - which does allow you to set your own headers - you'd have the best of both worlds.

Here's a jQuery plugin that creates such a form dynamically in order to download whichever file. You could use this as a reference...

Hope this helps

Upvotes: 1

Wumms
Wumms

Reputation: 8184

If you don't care about hiding or obfuscating the user credentials then just use plain GET authentification: use http://username:[email protected]/ instead of http://MyApi.com/

Upvotes: 1

Pieter
Pieter

Reputation: 3399

You should configure $.ajax using beforeSend. Below an example, but of course I don't know if the exact setup will work for you without any code to look at.

$.ajax( {
    url : '/model/user.json',
    dataType : 'json',
    'beforeSend' : function(xhr) {
            var bytes = Crypto.charenc.Binary.stringToBytes(username + ":" + password);
            var base64 = Crypto.util.bytesToBase64(bytes);
            xhr.setRequestHeader("Authorization", "Basic " + base64);
    },
    error : function(xhr, ajaxOptions, thrownError) {
        reset();
        onError('Invalid username or password. Please try again.');
        $('#loginform #user_login').focus();
    },
    success : function(model) {
        cookies();
            ...
    }
});

For this to work you need crypto-js.

Upvotes: -2

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