Node.js readFileSync ZIP file

Question

I am trying to read a ZIP file and output it to the browser, get the code that\'s shown on the page and save it as a ZIP file

fs.readFileSync(\'/dir/file.zip         


        

Answer 1

ZIP is a binary file type, when you output it in a browser as a text and copy-paste the text to a text editor, you won't get the same value as in the original file (likely web browser will interpret some of its contents as HTML tags, and/or a copy-paste will mangle some binary characters, and/or a text editor itself will mangle them).

What you should do is set appropriate HTTP response headers when serving the file to the browser, so that the browser knows it's a ZIP and can display the user a file download prompt. If you don't send any response headers, browser will just display contents as a text file which doesn't make sense.

Have a look at this question which has a PHP solution:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/10817739/245966

Basically you need to set appropriate Content-Type and Content-Disposition header, and (optionally) Content-Length.

setResponseHeader('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=myfile.zip');
setResponseHeader('Content-Type: application/zip');
setResponseHeader('Content-Length: ' + fileLengthInBytes);

Replace setResponseHeader with appropriate call to your HTTP framework which sets the response header.