node.js - How to send a pdf file from Node/Express app to the browser

Question

In my Node/Express app I have the following code, which suppose to read a PDF document from a file, and send it to the browser:

var file = fs.createReadStream('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf', 'binary');
var stat = fs.statSync('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Length', stat.size);
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename=quote.pdf');
res.pipe(file, 'binary');
res.end(); 

I do not get any errors, but I do not get the file in my browser either. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You have to pipe from Readable Stream to Writable stream not the other way around:

var file = fs.createReadStream('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
var stat = fs.statSync('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Length', stat.size);
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename=quote.pdf');
file.pipe(res);

Also you are setting encoding in wrong way, pass an object with encoding if needed.