Why does HttpClient in Angular 4 automatically assume that the request I am sending is in JSON format?

Question

Why does HttpClient in Angular 4 automatically assume that the request I am sending is in JSON format?

Currently, I am working with Angular 4's http client to communicate with a server that provides text data. To achieve this, I have implemented the following code snippet:

this.http.get('assets/a.txt').map((res:Response) => 
res.text()).subscribe((data: any) => {
  console.log(data.text());
});

Surprisingly, even though I haven't specified anywhere that the response is in JSON format, I encountered the following error:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token a in JSON at position 0 at Object.parse () at XMLHttpRequest.onLoad

I find it amusing how they automatically assume the response is in JSON format :)

json angular typescript angular-httpclient

Answer 1

Answer №1

The default response of the new HttpClient is in JSON format. If you want to receive the response in a different format, you can specify it using the requestOption with responseType: 'text'. For more details on this feature, you can refer to the following link: https://angular.io/guide/http#requesting-non-json-data

Below is an example:

this.http.get('assets/a.txt', { responseType: 'text' }).map((res:Response) => 
res).subscribe((data: any) => {
  console.log(data);
});

Answer 2

The default response of the new HttpClient is in JSON format. If you want to receive the response in a different format, you can specify it using the requestOption with responseType: 'text'. For more details on this feature, you can refer to the following link: https://angular.io/guide/http#requesting-non-json-data

Below is an example:

this.http.get('assets/a.txt', { responseType: 'text' }).map((res:Response) => 
res).subscribe((data: any) => {
  console.log(data);
});

Why does HttpClient in Angular 4 automatically assume that the request I am sending is in JSON format?

Answer №1

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