Sending raw, non-JSON Response results with a REST method

REST services by default create JSON output, but it's also possible to create raw Response output that allows you to return any kind of HTTP output including binary files (PDF, Images, audio, video) or even other text output like HTML, Xml or text based resources like JavaScript, CSS etc.

To do this you can use one of two properties in your REST methods:

THIS.lRawResponse (new as of 7.41)
THIS.oJsonService.IsRawResponse

Returning non-Json Results

There are a couple of ways to return non-JSON results:

From Memory Variables
From Files

From Memory

Here's how you can return a non-JSON response in a REST method from memory:

FUNCTION ReturnPdf()

THIS.oJsonService.IsRawResponse = .T.
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"

 lcFilename = THIS.ResolvePath("~/policy.pdf") 

*** Send from memory - string/blob
lcFile = FILETOSTR(lcFilename)
Response.BinaryWrite( lcFile )

ENDFUNC

Other output options might include using other HTML based response methods like Response.ExpandScript() to render a full HTML page. This basically gives you the ability to truly match REST and HTML content.

The following demonstrates returning an HTML response from a REST request:

FUNCTION Index()

*** We take over the Response here - no JSON Serialization
JsonService.IsRawResponse = .T.

Response.ContentType = "text/html"
Response.ExpandTemplate("~/index.wcs")

ENDFUNC

Specify the Content Type

You should always explicitly set the Content-Type of the request via Response.ContentType. In REST requests the default is application/json, so in most raw requests you'll need to change the content type to match your result text or data.

From File

If you need to return content from file, you can use:

Response.DownloadFile()
Response.TransmitFile()

These two methods vary in how files are presented in the browser - the former downloads always, while the latter will display in the browser if an appropriate viewer is available. For example a PDF file will download with the DownloadFile() but display in the browser PDF viewer with TransmitFile().

FUNCTION ReturnPdf()

THIS.oJsonService.IsRawResponse = .T.
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"

lcFilename = THIS.ResolvePath("~/policy.pdf") 

*** Send from file
Response.TransmitFile(lcFilename,"application/pdf")

ENDFUNC