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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T11:45:36+00:00

I need to open a pdf file for the user who clicks on a

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I need to open a pdf file for the user who clicks on a download button.

The download button makes a ajax call to a servlet which gets data from a blob field in the database containing PDF contents, and returns it as a response.

What can I do in order to make the response to be downloaded as a PDF file to the user.

The servlet code is as below:

                response.setContentType("application/pdf");
                oracle.sql.BLOB blob = (BLOB) rs.getBlob("MYPDF");
                byte[] bytes = blob.getBytes(1, (int) blob.length());
                ServletOutputStream servletOutputStream = response.getOutputStream();
                servletOutputStream.write(bytes, 0, bytes.length);
                servletOutputStream.flush();
                servletOutputStream.close();

I receive a long response containing characters like the ones below in AJAX when I checked the Fire bug for the response.

�a�J��㔎��ji�2K���y�2��q F�f�9�G��!%�kɂ��W��������mp){h̕�S���NJ_�A����’����2k��j���яR�>wB�e�|=w�p�%w��qǦ>�~�1o�㾙9j�B�;aNx3�`z��طc�O��ï��$�;�N|;�xۇ��;�-�c�f�M��c���(�f�M6K���

I don’t want to submit the page or to popup a window for the servlet with the parameters sent for the query showing in the URL

I also don’t want to create the file on the server.

Is there a way to take the response of servlet coming in ajax call and display it to a page or Iframe and the browser automatically downloads the file…

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Its is NOT possible to download a file using Ajax. However, the same ‘effect’ can be achieved using a hidden IFRAME. Instead of using XMLHttpRequest, dynamically create a hidden iframe and submit it to the servlet with the proper parameters. When the response comes, the browser will automatically handle the content based on the content-type/extension. If you are using jQuery, then this plugin has this functionality in-built.

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