I am using ASP.NET Web API.
I want to download a PDF with C# from the API (that the API generates).
Can I just have the API return a byte[]
? and for the C# application can I just do:
byte[] pdf = client.DownloadData("urlToAPI");?
and
File.WriteAllBytes()?
This question is related to
c#
asp.net-web-api
Another way to download file is to write the stream content to the response's body directly:
[HttpGet("pdfstream/{id}")]
public async Task GetFile(long id)
{
var stream = GetStream(id);
Response.StatusCode = (int)HttpStatusCode.OK;
Response.Headers.Add( HeaderNames.ContentDisposition, $"attachment; filename=\"{Guid.NewGuid()}.pdf\"" );
Response.Headers.Add( HeaderNames.ContentType, "application/pdf" );
await stream.CopyToAsync(Response.Body);
await Response.Body.FlushAsync();
}
Just a note for .Net Core
: We can use the FileContentResult
and set the contentType to application/octet-stream
if we want to send the raw bytes. Example:
[HttpGet("{id}")]
public IActionResult GetDocumentBytes(int id)
{
byte[] byteArray = GetDocumentByteArray(id);
return new FileContentResult(byteArray, "application/octet-stream");
}
Example with IHttpActionResult
in ApiController
.
[HttpGet]
[Route("file/{id}/")]
public IHttpActionResult GetFileForCustomer(int id)
{
if (id == 0)
return BadRequest();
var file = GetFile(id);
IHttpActionResult response;
HttpResponseMessage responseMsg = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK);
responseMsg.Content = new ByteArrayContent(file.SomeData);
responseMsg.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new System.Net.Http.Headers.ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment");
responseMsg.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition.FileName = file.FileName;
responseMsg.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/pdf");
response = ResponseMessage(responseMsg);
return response;
}
If you don't want to download the PDF and use a browsers built in PDF viewer instead remove the following two lines:
responseMsg.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new System.Net.Http.Headers.ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment");
responseMsg.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition.FileName = file.FileName;
I've been wondering if there was a simple way to download a file in a more ... "generic" way. I came up with this.
It's a simple ActionResult
that will allow you to download a file from a controller call that returns an IHttpActionResult
.
The file is stored in the byte[] Content
. You can turn it into a stream if needs be.
I used this to return files stored in a database's varbinary column.
public class FileHttpActionResult : IHttpActionResult
{
public HttpRequestMessage Request { get; set; }
public string FileName { get; set; }
public string MediaType { get; set; }
public HttpStatusCode StatusCode { get; set; }
public byte[] Content { get; set; }
public Task<HttpResponseMessage> ExecuteAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = new HttpResponseMessage(StatusCode);
response.StatusCode = StatusCode;
response.Content = new StreamContent(new MemoryStream(Content));
response.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment");
response.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition.FileName = FileName;
response.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue(MediaType);
return Task.FromResult(response);
}
}
I made the follow action:
[HttpGet]
[Route("api/DownloadPdfFile/{id}")]
public HttpResponseMessage DownloadPdfFile(long id)
{
HttpResponseMessage result = null;
try
{
SQL.File file = db.Files.Where(b => b.ID == id).SingleOrDefault();
if (file == null)
{
result = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Gone);
}
else
{
// sendo file to client
byte[] bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(file.pdfBase64);
result = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
result.Content = new ByteArrayContent(bytes);
result.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new System.Net.Http.Headers.ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment");
result.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition.FileName = file.name + ".pdf";
}
return result;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.Gone);
}
}
Source: Stackoverflow.com