Best way to access external file

help
1

Hi there,
I would like to dysplay a pdf file in an iframe (for example) from his absolute path. what is the best way to do that ?

I attempt some things :

  • putting my pdf file in the public folder and accessing it with this :
    <iframe src="test.pdf"></iframe>
    It’s obviously working ! The problem is : my file will never be there in my project :slight_smile:

  • so i transformed my code with :
    <iframe src="/home/pierre/Documents/tmp/print/pdf/test.pdf"></iframe>
    Here I have no error, but a 404 not found. Normal thing, client can’t access to this kind of absolute path.

  • so i passed by the server, and trying to get the Binary with peerlibrary:pdf.js package :
    <iframe src="{{getPdf}}"</iframe>

I do a registerHelper with my getPdf who are executing a Meteor.call, and server side i get :

    "getPdf": function () {
      var pdf = {
                    data: Assets.getBinary("/home/pierre/Documents/tmp/print/pdf/test.pdf"),   // same result with only "test.pdf"
                    password: ''
                };
                var document = PDFJS.getDocumentSync(pdf);
                var page = document.getPageSync(1);
                return document;
    }

And here i get : Error: Unknown asset: /home/pierre/Documents/tmp/print/pdf/test.pdf

I’m stunned, any tips ?

2

Assets.getBinary can only be used to retrieve assets stored under an applications private directory. If you want to use peerlibrary:pdf.js, then you’ll need to use another method to load the PDF. For example, peer library:pdf.js itself recommends the following in its docs:

If not using Assets to get PDF, you should use fs package for file system access to get fibers-enabled synchronous functions instead of functions which block the whole node.js process.

That being said, maybe consider storing the PDF in your apps private directory to make things easier.

3

Hi Hwillson and thanks for your answer !
I passed like you said with the fs package. I did the meteor add peelibrary:fs and i did that code in the server :

        var dir = '/home/pierre/Documents/tmp/print/pdf/';
        var pdfFile = dir + "test.pdf";

        var pdf = {
            data: fs.readFileSync(pdfFile),
            password: ''
        };

        var document = PDFJS.getDocumentSync(pdfFile);
        return document;

But i still get an error :
Exception while invoking method ‘getPdf’ Error: MissingPDFException: Missing PDF “file:///home/pierre/Documents/tmp/print/pdf/test.pdf”.
But copying this path to my brower lead me to my pdf.

I conturned my problem by using iron:router to do the job
I read my pdf with a redirection like that :

Router.route('/pdf/:filename', function() {
    var filePath = "/home/pierre/Documents/tmp/print/pdf/" + this.params.filename;
    var fs = Npm.require('fs');
    var data = fs.readFileSync(filePath);
    this.response.write(data);
    this.response.end();
}, {
    where: 'server'
});

So when i do a link to localhost:3000/pdf/test.pdf, it open the file in the new tab.
That isn’t the expected solution… but the work is “done” :slight_smile:

PS : nope, i couldn’t put all my pdf in private or public folders cause they are dynamically created from java. And I don’t want put my files in there :slight_smile: