How to pass header to URL in Flutter - flutter

Question

I have a question regarding how to view a PDF from URL.
I’m using flutter_pdfview library and I try to get a PDF from an URL and to view it in my Flutter app.
The problem is that my URL can be accessed ONLY with a token (session ID/header), but I don’t know how to pass it because is not working on the way I do it at the moment.
Here is an example of how the owner of the flutter_pdfview library is getting the PDF from an URL (without a Header): https://github.com/endigo/flutter_pdfview/blob/master/example/lib/main.dart#L49
And here is my code where I don’t know how else to pass the header than like this:
Future<File> createFileOfPdfUrl() async {
Completer<File> completer = Completer();
if (kDebugMode) {
print("Start download file from internet!");
}
try {
String url =
"$customURL.pdf";
if (kDebugMode) {
print("url: $url");
}
final filename = url.substring(url.lastIndexOf("/") + 1);
var client = HttpClient();
HttpClientRequest request = await client.getUrl(Uri.parse(url));
request.headers.add(
HttpHeaders.acceptHeader,
HeaderValue(
"text/plain", {'APPAUTH': '${widget.authService.loginToken}'})); // this method doesn't seems to work for me. I'm getting an empty PDF.
var response = await request.close();
var bytes = await consolidateHttpClientResponseBytes(response);
var dir = await getApplicationDocumentsDirectory();
if (kDebugMode) {
print("Download files");
print("${dir.path}/$filename");
}
File file = File("${dir.path}/$filename");
await file.writeAsBytes(bytes, flush: true);
completer.complete(file);
} catch (e) {
throw Exception('Error parsing asset file!');
}
return completer.future;
}

Answer 1

DO NOT do this:
request.headers.add(
HttpHeaders.acceptHeader, // here is the problem
HeaderValue(
"text/plain", {'APPAUTH': '${widget.authService.loginToken}'}));
SOLUTION for me:
request.headers.add("APPAUTH", "12345abcde67890defgh");
For some reason if you provide a HeaderValue you also need to provide a string value before it, which can be HttpHeaders.acceptHeader or HttpHeaders.serverHeader etc. I tried a lot of them from that enum list and none worked for me so I used the above solution where you don't need to pass that HttpHeader value type.