具有Express的Node.js-返回到.CSV文件的链接，而不是下载它

Question

I am creating an application that turns json from a database into a csv file and serves it to the user based on selected parameters. Consider the following portion of a router my node server that returns converted CSV data:

request(options, function (err, body) {
    if (err) {
        return res.status(400).json({ success: false, data: err});
    }
    else {
        var jsonresponse = JSON.parse(body);
        if (jsonresponse.timed_out) {
            return res.status(504).json({ success: true, data: "timed out"});
        }
        else {
            jsonexport(jsonresponse, function(err, data){
                if(err) return console.log(err);
                return res.status(200).send(data);
            });
        }
    }
}

Currently, the above code takes a json response and converts it into csv using jsonexport , then serves the raw csv data to the client.

I know I can use the file-system module to download the data as a file to local storage before the API call finishes, but is there a way I can create the .csv file and store it somewhere for the client to later access? I want to complete more logic after the API call is finished on the client side before letting the user have the file.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Answer 1

You can use the express.static() function to accomplish your goal. ( docs )

Consider the following example:

var express = require('express')
var app = express();

app.use('/files', express.static('/files');

This will make it so the /files endpoint serves everything inside the /files folder statically. Meaning if you have, say, a file called test.csv stored in that folder, you could access it through http://yourhost:port/files/test.csv .