Angularjs simple file download causes router to redirect

Question

HTML:

<a href="mysite.com/uploads/asd4a4d5a.pdf" download="foo.pdf">

Uploads get a unique file name while there real name is kept in database. I want to realize a simple file download. But the code above redirects to / because of:

$routeProvider.otherwise({
    redirectTo: '/', 
    controller: MainController
});

I tried with

$scope.download = function(resource){
    window.open(resource);
}

but this just opens the file in a new window.

Any ideas how to enable a real download for any file type?

Answer 1

https://docs.angularjs.org/guide/$location#html-link-rewriting

In cases like the following, links are not rewritten; instead, the browser will perform a full page reload to the original link.

• Links that contain target element Example:
  <a href="/ext/link?a=b" target="_self">link</a>

• Absolute links that go to a different domain Example:
  <a href="http://angularjs.org/">link</a>

• Links starting with '/' that lead to a different base path when base is defined Example:
  <a href="/not-my-base/link">link</a>

So in your case, you should add a target attribute like so...

<a target="_self" href="example.com/uploads/asd4a4d5a.pdf" download="foo.pdf">