Sharepoint 2013 - REST api - downloading file returns incorrect Content-Type

Question

I made the following request to download a file from Sharepoint 2013 using REST api:

GET https://mydomain.sharepoint.com/mysite/_api/web/GetFolderByServerRelativeUrl('/mysite/testlib')/files('test-file.pdf')/$value
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Accept: application/octet-stream
Authorization: Bearer eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJ...
User-Agent: Google-HTTP-Java-Client/1.13.1-beta (gzip)

I got the response with correct file's content, but the Content-Type of the response is:

Content-Type: application

Is that anyway I can make Sharepoint returns full Mime-Type in the response header? i.e. Content-Type: application/pdf

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You have to add binaryStringResponseBody: true,

var info = {
        url: appwebUrl + "/_api/SP.AppContextSite(@target)/web/GetFileByServerRelativeUrl('/sites/Test/Shared Documents/" + sourcefile.get_name() + "')/$value?@target='myhosturl'",

        binaryStringResponseBody: true,
        success: function (data) {
        },
        error: function () { alert('error'); }

    }

in msdn, you can find binaryStringRequestBody: true for adding file to Document library. Similarly you can add binaryStringResponseBody: true to download a file. Hope This helps.

Answer 2

I was unable to download the file as it seemed to be ignoring my HTTP Header (as per @sekhar's answer).

Instead, once I got the filename I downloaded it directly (rather than via the REST API). Here's my code:

$date = (Get-Date).AddDays(-1).ToString("yyyy-MM-ddT00:00:00")

$baseURL = "http://server/site"
$libName = "LibName"

$restURL = "$baseURL/_api/Web/lists/GetByTitle('$libName')"
$filterUrl = "$restURL/items?`$filter=Modified ge datetime'$date'"

$libURL = "$baseURL/$libName"
$filePath = "F:\DownloadTemp"

$request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($filterUrl)
$request.Method = "GET"
$request.UseDefaultCredentials = $true

$resp = $request.GetResponse()
$reader = new-object System.IO.StreamReader($resp.GetResponseStream())
[xml]$xml = $reader.ReadToEnd()

$ns = @{
         d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices"
     m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata"
       }

$webclient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$webclient.UseDefaultCredentials = $true

$xml | Select-Xml '//d:ID' -Namespace $ns | foreach-object {

        $fileInfoURL = "$restURL/items($_)/file"

        $request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($fileInfoURL)
        $request.Method = "GET"
        $request.UseDefaultCredentials = $true

        $resp = $request.GetResponse()
        $reader = new-object System.IO.StreamReader($resp.GetResponseStream())
        [xml]$xml2 = $reader.ReadToEnd()

        $xml2 | Select-Xml '//m:properties/d:Name' -Namespace $ns  | foreach-object {

            $libURLFile = "$libURL/$_"
            #$libURLFile

            $filePath = "$filePath\$_"
            #$filePath 

            $webclient.DownloadFile($libURLFile,$filePath)  

            #DO WORK

            #Remove-Item $filePath
        }
    }