Download file of any type in Asp.Net MVC using FileResult?

Question

I've had it suggested to me that I should use FileResult to allow users to download files from my Asp.Net MVC application. But the only examples of this I can find always has to do with image files (specifying content type image/jpeg).

But what if I can't know the file type? I want users to be able to download pretty much any file from the filearea of my site.

I had read one method of doing this (see a previous post for the code), that actually works fine, except for one thing: the name of the file that comes up in the Save As dialog is concatenated from the file path with underscores (folder_folder_file.ext). Also, it seems people think I should return a FileResult instead of using this custom class that I had found BinaryContentResult.

Anyone know the "correct" way of doing such a download in MVC?

EDIT: I got the answer (below), but just thought I should post the full working code if someone else is interested:

public ActionResult Download(string filePath, string fileName)
{
    string fullName = Path.Combine(GetBaseDir(), filePath, fileName);

    byte[] fileBytes = GetFile(fullName);
    return File(
        fileBytes, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet, fileName);
}

byte[] GetFile(string s)
{
    System.IO.FileStream fs = System.IO.File.OpenRead(s);
    byte[] data = new byte[fs.Length];
    int br = fs.Read(data, 0, data.Length);
    if (br != fs.Length)
        throw new System.IO.IOException(s);
    return data;
}

Answer 1

You can just specify the generic octet-stream MIME type:

public FileResult Download()
{
    byte[] fileBytes = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(@"c:\folder\myfile.ext");
    string fileName = "myfile.ext";
    return File(fileBytes, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet, fileName);
}

Answer 2

The MVC framework supports this natively. The System.Web.MVC.Controller.File controller provides methods to return a file by name/stream/array.

For example using a virtual path to the file you could do the following.

return File(virtualFilePath, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet,  Path.GetFileName(virtualFilePath));

Answer 3

If you're using .NET Framework 4.5 then you use use the MimeMapping.GetMimeMapping(string FileName) to get the MIME-Type for your file. This is how I've used it in my action.

return File(Path.Combine(@"c:\path", fileFromDB.FileNameOnDisk), MimeMapping.GetMimeMapping(fileFromDB.FileName), fileFromDB.FileName);

Answer 4

Phil Haack has a nice article where he created a Custom File Download Action Result class. You only need to specify the virtual path of the file and the name to be saved as.

I used it once and here's my code.

        [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
        public ActionResult Download(int fileID)
        {
            Data.LinqToSql.File file = _fileService.GetByID(fileID);

            return new DownloadResult { VirtualPath = GetVirtualPath(file.Path),
                                        FileDownloadName = file.Name };
        }

In my example i was storing the physical path of the files so i used this helper method -that i found somewhere i can't remember- to convert it to a virtual path

        private string GetVirtualPath(string physicalPath)
        {
            string rootpath = Server.MapPath("~/");

            physicalPath = physicalPath.Replace(rootpath, "");
            physicalPath = physicalPath.Replace("\\", "/");

            return "~/" + physicalPath;
        }

Here's the full class as taken from Phill Haack's article

public class DownloadResult : ActionResult {

    public DownloadResult() {}

    public DownloadResult(string virtualPath) {
        this.VirtualPath = virtualPath;
    }

    public string VirtualPath {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public string FileDownloadName {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context) {
        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(FileDownloadName)) {
            context.HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", 
            "attachment; filename=" + this.FileDownloadName)
        }

        string filePath = context.HttpContext.Server.MapPath(this.VirtualPath);
        context.HttpContext.Response.TransmitFile(filePath);
    }
}

Answer 5

Thanks to Ian Henry!

In case if you need to get file from MS SQL Server here is the solution.

public FileResult DownloadDocument(string id)
        {
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(id))
            {
                try
                {
                    var fileId = Guid.Parse(id);

                    var myFile = AppModel.MyFiles.SingleOrDefault(x => x.Id == fileId);

                    if (myFile != null)
                    {
                        byte[] fileBytes = myFile.FileData;
                        return File(fileBytes, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet, myFile.FileName);
                    }
                }
                catch
                {
                }
            }

            return null;
        }

Where AppModel is EntityFramework model and MyFiles presents table in your database. FileData is varbinary(MAX) in MyFiles table.

Answer 6

its simple just give your physical path in directoryPath with file name

public FilePathResult GetFileFromDisk(string fileName)
{
    return File(directoryPath, "multipart/form-data", fileName);
}

Answer 7

   public ActionResult Download()
        {
            var document = //Obtain document from database context
    var cd = new System.Net.Mime.ContentDisposition
    {
        FileName = document.FileName,
        Inline = false,
    };
            Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", cd.ToString());
            return File(document.Data, document.ContentType);
        }

Answer 8

if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(fileName)) return Content("filename not present");

        var path = Path.Combine(your path, your filename);

        var stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open);

        return File(stream, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet, fileName);

Answer 9

GetFile should be closing the file (or opening it within a using). Then you can delete the file after conversion to bytes-- the download will be done on that byte buffer.

    byte[] GetFile(string s)
    {
        byte[] data;
        using (System.IO.FileStream fs = System.IO.File.OpenRead(s))
        {
            data = new byte[fs.Length];
            int br = fs.Read(data, 0, data.Length);
            if (br != fs.Length)
                throw new System.IO.IOException(s);
        }
        return data;
    }

So in your download method...

        byte[] fileBytes = GetFile(file);
        // delete the file after conversion to bytes
        System.IO.File.Delete(file);
        // have the file download dialog only display the base name of the file            return File(fileBytes, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet, Path.GetFileName(file));