Getting the Play Framework to redirect to a Thank You page after file download - scala

Question

I have the following code for the download of a file and then redirecting to a thank you page in the DownloadController.scala under the Play Framework
def thankView = SecuredAction(WithProvider[AuthType](CredentialsProvider.ID)) {
implicit request: SecuredRequest[DefaultEnv, AnyContent] =>
Ok(downloadThankView(request.identity))
}
def download = SecuredAction(WithProvider[AuthType](CredentialsProvider.ID)) {
implicit request: SecuredRequest[DefaultEnv, AnyContent] =>
val futureMaybeFile = downloadService.generateDownload(request.identity.userID)
val maybeFile = Await.result(futureMaybeTempFile, 10 second)
maybeFile match {
case Some(file) =>
Ok.sendFile(
file,
fileName = _ => Some(file.getName),
onClose = () => {
file.delete()
// position (1) for placing the redirect, which doesn’t prevent the file download, but does not get executed
Redirect(routes.DownloadController.thankView())
}
).withHeaders(
"HttpResponse.entity.contentType" -> "text/txt",
"Content-Disposition" -> s"attachment; filename=${file.getName}"
)
// position (2) for placing the redirect which executes but prevents the file download
Redirect(routes.DownloadController.thankView())
case None =>
Redirect(routes.InfoController.view(Messages(“oops.there.was.error"), Messages("download.title")))
}
}
When I place the Redirect(routes.DownloadController.thankView()) line in the onClose section of sendFile, it does not get executed; and when it is placed after the sendFile it executes but prevents the file from getting downloaded.
What am I missing in here? How can I solve this issue?

Answer 1

From a HTTP point of view, I think this is not something doable: a single HTTP response cannot contain at the same time a file and be a redirect to somewhere else.
You should rather have some kind of html page that:
triggers the file download (via JS for instance)
triggers a redirect to the "thank you" page