Read response headers from API response - Angular 5 + TypeScript

I'm triggering a HTTP request and I'm getting a valid response from it. The response also has a header X-Token that I wish to read. I'm trying the below code to read the headers, however, I get null as a result

this.currentlyExecuting.request = this.http.request(reqParams.type, reqParams.url, {
    body: reqParams.body,
    responseType: 'json',
    observe: 'response'
}).subscribe(
    (_response: any) => {
        // Also tried _response.headers.init();
        const header = _response.headers.get('X-Token');
        console.log(header);
        onComplete(_response.body);
     },
    _error => {
        onComplete({
            code: -1,
            message: Constants.WEBSERVICE_INTERNET_NOT_CONNNECTED
        });
    }
);

The response of the API, when checked in Chrome inspect, shows the header is present.

Solution 1:

Have you exposed the X-Token from server side using access-control-expose-headers? because not all headers are allowed to be accessed from the client side, you need to expose them from the server side

Also in your frontend, you can use new HTTP module to get a full response using {observe: 'response'} like

http
  .get<any>('url', {observe: 'response'})
  .subscribe(resp => {
    console.log(resp.headers.get('X-Token'));
  });

Solution 2:

In my case in the POST response I want to have the authorization header because I was having the JWT Token in it. So what I read from this post is the header I we want should be added as an Expose Header from the back-end. So what I did was added the Authorization header to my Exposed Header like this in my filter class.

response.addHeader("Access-Control-Expose-Headers", "Authorization");
response.addHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "Authorization, X-PINGOTHER, Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, X-Custom-header");
response.addHeader(HEADER_STRING, TOKEN_PREFIX + token); // HEADER_STRING == Authorization

And at my Angular Side

In the Component.

this.authenticationService.login(this.f.email.value, this.f.password.value)
  .pipe(first())
  .subscribe(
    (data: HttpResponse<any>) => {
      console.log(data.headers.get('authorization'));
    },
    error => {
      this.loading = false;
    });

At my Service Side.

return this.http.post<any>(Constants.BASE_URL + 'login', {username: username, password: password},
  {observe: 'response' as 'body'})
  .pipe(map(user => {
       return user;
  }));

Solution 3:

You should use the new HttpClient. You can find more information here.

http
  .get<any>('url', {observe: 'response'})
  .subscribe(resp => {
    console.log(resp.headers.get('X-Token'));
  });

Solution 4:

As Hrishikesh Kale has explained we need to pass the Access-Control-Expose-Headers.

Here how we can do it in the WebAPI/MVC environment:

protected void Application_BeginRequest()
        {
            if (HttpContext.Current.Request.HttpMethod == "OPTIONS")
            {
                //These headers are handling the "pre-flight" OPTIONS call sent by the browser
                HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, OPTIONS");
                HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "*");
                HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Credentials", "true");
                HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "http://localhost:4200");
                HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Expose-Headers", "TestHeaderToExpose");
                HttpContext.Current.Response.End();
            }
        }

Another way is we can add code as below in the webApiconfig.cs file.

config.EnableCors(new EnableCorsAttribute("", headers: "", methods: "*",exposedHeaders: "TestHeaderToExpose") { SupportsCredentials = true });

**We can add custom headers in the web.config file as below. *

<httpProtocol>
   <customHeaders>
      <add name="Access-Control-Expose-Headers" value="TestHeaderToExpose" />
   </customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>

we can create an attribute and decore the method with the attribute.

Happy Coding !!