Opening a local file href in webview

[bnns]

Platform
RN 0.26
iOS and Android
Mac OSX

My application allows users to download documents to their phone's Documents/ folder using react-native-fs - but I'm unable to open these downloaded files. I have tried rendering <a href="..."></a> tags with the following formats

file:///path/file.pdf
/path/file.pdf
../path/file.pdf

Nothing happens when I press the link. I'm thinking maybe the path returned by RNFS.DocumentDirectoryPath is not correct, although when I paste this path into a browser (on my desktop running the simulator), I am able to get to the file.

Edit: I am able to open the file using a Webview with a source={{uri: ...}} prop though. I suppose I could launch a new webview each time a user launches something which should be render-able. But this doesn't solve cases of files that need some type of native app.

2nd Edit: source={{uri:...}} doesn't work for PDFs in android, but works in iOS.

[charpeni]

Does it work in debug mode but not in release ? Could be related to #7924.

[bnns]

It doesn't work in debug mode. I'm not sure what is considered "root" from the webview's perspective. The files I'm trying to access are in (when you adb shell into android) /data/data/com.myapp/files and /data/user/0/com.myapp/files - I display a <a href="/data/data/com.myapp/files/something.pdf"></a> in the webview. When the link is pressed, the page goes blank (implying that it is loading?) and nothing else happens.

[bnns]

Figured it out after reading @grokbot's comment in itinance/react-native-fs#49 - you have to use ExternalDirectoryPath (file:///storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.myapp/files/...). It seems the document directory has some permissions issues.

[npomfret]

I don't fully understand the solution here, could you elaborate?

I'm unable to load a pdf into a web view in android, its just blank, with no error messages. I've tried an http://... url and a content://... style url - but both have the same issue.

[lordminkie]

is the location of the file on http:// or are you using react-native-fs? The reference above was using a file:// url retrieved from react-native-fs ... not sure what ramifications there are for WebViews

[npomfret]

The urls I've got are http://... url and a content://.... Neither work

[wuno]

I have searched all over for an answer to this question. Have any of you solved this?

To be clear if we were facing the same issues,

I am rendering a web application through a web view. The loaded web page has a login form. Once the user logs in there is a download link which when clicked should download a .txt file to the user's phone. But when the user clicks the download link nothing happens.

Does anyone have any information on how to solve this problem?

I need the download link to download the file to the users phone.

[andrelimawork]

convert it to base64 and inject it in the webview...

[wuno]

Thanks, we ended up doing it natively with Swift and Android.

[Stophface]

This might help: #505 (comment)