# response

## Purpose

The `response` object is an instance of the Servlet API's HttpServletResponse class

## Examples

    class BookController {
    	def downloadFile = {
    		byte[] bytes = // read bytes
    		response.outputStream << bytes
    	}
    }

## Description

The Servlet API's `HttpServletResponse` class can be used within Grails to perform all typical activities such as writing out binary data, writing directly to the response and sending error response codes to name but a few. Refer to the documentation on the HttpServletResponse class in the Servlet API for more information.

Grails also overrides the left shift operator on the `response` object making it easier to write to the response writer:

    response << "Hello World"