Have a quick question in regards to PS4 expansion upgrading

So this might sound a little weird and I'm not sure if anyone can help me, but I will ask regardless.

I own Heavensward on both PC and PS4. I ended up re-buying the game on PS4 last week because I really wanted the physical CE items (I'm weird, I know). I have a friend who played the game on PS4 with a digital copy and hes looking to getting back into it. I want to give him my extra PS4 copy to use so he just has to re-sub. My question is this...does he need the disc? I got realm reborn on PS4 threw the PS3 free upgrade, so my copy was digital but I bought a physical copy of heavensward. When I entered the code onto the PSN it didn't ask me to insert the disc, although I did anyway (at the time I thought it would make installing the expansion files quicker).

If I just give my friend the code for the expansion for him to redeem via PSN, will he be able to just download the expansion files when he boots up the game? (kinda like how the PC version does it?)

I think your friend just needs to put a code in. Just make sure that mogstation shows HW access. After that he should be good. Even people with physical discs can go through the ps4 library and make the game digital. The disc is largely useless.