I have never had this happen before and am not sure why it’s happening. I have a component written to display PDF files in an iframe as part of a larger application. I am retrieving a BLOB stream from the server and attempting to create a URL for it to display in the iframe but it keeps giving me a cross-origin error, which I thought would not be possible since it is creating the URL out of data.
Here is my entire component:
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react'
import IFrameComponent from '../Elements/IFrameComponent';
const PDFPages = (props) => {
let [file, setFile] = useState(null)
let [notFound, show404]=useState(false)
useEffect(() => {
let id=props.site?.componentFile;
fetch(`${process.env.REACT_APP_HOST}/documents/GetPDF`,
{
method: 'POST'
, headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
}
, credentials: 'include'
, body: JSON.stringify({file:id})
})
.then(async response => {
let blob;
try{
blob=await response.blob(); // <--- this functions correctly
}
catch(ex){
let b64=await response.json()
blob=Buffer.from(b64.fileData,'base64')
}
//Create a Blob from the PDF Stream
//Build a URL from the file
const str=`data:application/pdf;base64,${b64.fileData}`
const url=URL.createObjectURL(blob) //<--- ERROR IS THROWN HERE
setFile(url);
})
.catch(error => {
show404(true)
});
}, []);
if(!notFound){
return <IFrameComponent src={file} title=''>
Please enable iFrames in your browser for this page to function correctly
</IFrameComponent>
}
else {
return (
<>
<h3> File {file} could not be found on server</h3>
</>
)
}
}
export default PDFPages;
For completeness here is the GetPDF function from the server which is sending the file.
router.post('/GetPDF', async (req, res, next) => {
const props = req.body;
let fileName = props.file;
try {
fileName = fileName.replace(/%20/g, " ");
let options = {};
if (props.base64) options.encoding = 'base64'
let data = await dataQuery.loadFile(`./data/documentation/${fileName}`, options);
if (!props.base64) {
res.attachment = "filename=" + fileName
res.contentType = 'application/pdf'
res.send(data);
}
else{
res.send({fileData:data, fileName: fileName});
}
}
catch (ex) {
res.send({ error: true })
}
});
I have done very little work in node sending files but am positive my client code is good. Where am I going wrong here?
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Answer
The problem was that I was trying to be too fancy sending a BLOB or Base64 data. After investigation I rewrote
router.post('/GetPDF', async (req, res, next) => {
const props = req.body;
let fileName = props.file;
try {
fileName = fileName.replace(/%20/g, " ");
let options = {};
if (props.base64) options.encoding = 'base64'
let data = await dataQuery.loadFile(`./data/documentation/${fileName}`, options);
if (!props.base64) {
res.attachment = "filename=" + fileName
res.contentType = 'application/pdf'
res.send(data);
}
else{
res.send({fileData:data, fileName: fileName});
}
}
catch (ex) {
res.send({ error: true })
}
});
on the server to
router.get('/GetPDF/:fileName', async (req, res, next) => {
let fileName = req.params.fileName
fileName = `./data/documentation/${fileName.replace(/%20/g, " ")}`;
try {
let data = await dataQuery.loadFile(fileName);
res.contentType("application/pdf");
res.send(data);
}
catch (ex) {
res.send({ error: true })
}
});
Then calling it from the client using
const url = `${process.env.REACT_APP_HOST}/documents/GetPDF/${props.site.componentFile}`
as the iFrame src sends the PDF properly as expected.
This same method also solved another problem with HTML pages sent from the server not functioning correctly.