Echo not being executed before return response

Question

I have a really simple question. I have this Controller in my Laravel application, that returns a zip file download, depending on what the user selected. So far so good. I also have this echo just before the return:

echo "<script> alert('test') </script>";

return response()->download(public_path($fileName));

My question is: the "echo" is not being executed, but if i remove the return, it is executed.. isn't the "echo" supposed to execute before the return ? Why is it not being executed?

Answer 1

download() forces browser to well... download given file, so there is no place to display echo text. You can use for example redirect to download page to firstly display alert box.