How to set filename containing spaces in Content-Disposition header
JavaServletsDownloadFilenamesJava Problem Overview
I have this piece of code:
resp.addHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=" + fileName);
When the file name is "a_b_c.doc" or "abc.doc" the name of the downloaded file is displayed correctly. However, when the file name is "a b c .doc" the name of the downloaded file is only "a".
How can we solve this?
Java Solutions
Solution 1 - Java
Use quotes:
resp.addHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");
Solution 2 - Java
According to the HTTP standard you surround the string with double-quotes, and escape any quotes or backslashes within by preceding them with a single backslash.
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Very \"interesting\" file \\ files.txt"
This will prompt to save as Very "interesting" file \ files.txt
. Note that the presence of a backslash does not suggest a folder, it suggests the backslash is part of the filename (which is perfectly valid on Linux and some other platforms, but not on Windows.)
Solution 3 - Java
Following steps are required:
- URI-encode the filename
- Replace the spaces in the encoded filename (we're using an URL encoder instead of URI encoder, but URL encoding uses
+
as encoded space instead of%20
, so we need to manually replace them with%20
). - Set the encoded file name in the header. Here we have two variants: one which specifices the encoding, and one that doesn't. For maximal compatibility we can specify both.
Code:
String fileName = ...;
String encodedFileName = URLEncoder.encode(fileName,
StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name()).replace("+", "%20");
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition",
String.format("inline; filename*=UTF-8''%1$s; filename=%1$s", encodedFileName));
Example header:
inline; filename*=UTF-8''Hello%20World.doc; filename=Hello%20World.doc
Successfully tested with
- Firefox ✔
- Chrome ✔
- Edge ✔
- Internet Explorer ✔
Solution 4 - Java
if you quote your filename with chr(34)
it will work:
resp.addHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=" + chr(34) + fileName + chr(34));