Asp.Net hide url of file - asp.net

I hav an Asp.NET site that displays a PDF/Word/Excel file but I would like to hide the location of the file i.e. if the user requests a file via a link instead of displaying the path just open the filename, I've seen some other posts on other sites but since they are old they do not wok.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

Use ASP.NET ASHX Handler
Some ASP.NET files are dynamically generated. They are generated with C# code or disk resources. These files do not require web forms. Instead, an ASHX generic handler is ideal. It can dynamically return an image from a query string, write XML, or any other data.

One way to get around this is to write a custom .ashx handler, which implements IHttpHandler.
Implement the ProcessRequest(..) method, and pipe the file out in the response (here's an example from an application I wrote a while back:
Public Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest
Dim inline As Boolean = Boolean.Parse(context.Request.QueryString("Inline"))
Dim fileName As String = context.Request.QueryString("fileName")
If (fileName.Contains("\")) Then Throw New Exception(String.Format("Invalid filename {0}. Looks like a path was attempted", fileName))
Dim filePath = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("FileDirectory") + "\" + fileName
With context.Response
.Buffer = True
.Clear()
If inline Then
.AddHeader("content-disposition", "inline; ; filename=" & IO.Path.GetFileName(filePath))
Else
.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; ; filename=" & IO.Path.GetFileName(filePath))
End If
.WriteFile(filePath)
If fileName.ToUpper.EndsWith(".PDF") Then
.ContentType = "application/pdf"
ElseIf fileName.EndsWith(".htm") Or fileName.EndsWith(".html") Then
.ContentType = "text/html"
ElseIf fileName.EndsWith(".tif") Then
.ContentType = "image/tiff"
ElseIf fileName.EndsWith(".jpeg") Or fileName.EndsWith(".jpg") Then
.ContentType = "image/jpeg"
End If
.End()
End With

Related

How to send multiple files with Response. ASP.NET

I'm trying to call below code in a loop hundreds of times:
Sub ExportReport(ByVal en As MyReport)
Dim warnings As Warning() = Nothing
Dim streamids As String() = Nothing
Dim mimeType As String = Nothing
Dim encoding As String = Nothing
Dim extension As String = Nothing
Dim bytes As Byte()
bytes = aReport.ServerReport.Render("WORD", Nothing, mimeType, encoding, extension, streamids, warnings)
Response.Buffer = True
Response.Clear()
Response.ContentType = mimeType
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=" & en.ToString() & "." + extension)
Response.BinaryWrite(bytes)
Response.Flush()
Response.End()
End Sub
And I'm getting this error :
Server cannot append header after HTTP headers have been sent.
How can I change the code so that I can loop this piece of code? Thanks.
EDIT :
I added this line after Response.End()
Response.Redirect(Request.Url.AbsoluteUri)
And I get this error :
Cannot redirect after HTTP headers have been sent.
WWW works on a request / response mechanism. For every request there is only 1 response. You cannot change that basic mechanism. When browser sends a request it is expecting one and only one response. So if it receives more than 1 response, it either issues a warning to the user to block this behaviour or may choose to ignore the extra responses by itself. Thus these extra responses may be lost.
Having said that you have 2 options with you:
Zip all the files that you want to download and download as a single file.
You can use Popular framework Ionic.Zip.
First, keep all your files in a local directory on the server.
Then use this library to zip the entire folder.
Pseudo code:
Imports (var zip = New Ionic.Zip.ZipFile())
{
zip.AddDirectory("DirectoryOnDisk", "rootInZipFile")
Response.Clear()
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=DownloadedFile.zip")
Response.ContentType = "application/zip"
zip.Save(Response.OutputStream)
Response.End()
}
Add a mechanism to issue multiple request using Javascript to get multiple responses, so browser still treats this behaviour as normal.
A normal web page will have a load of (headers) stuff set up for you already, but you don't want any of that: you want complete control over what is sent to the browser. If you cause a redirect to something which sends the headers shown in code later here, the browser will (normally) download the data.
In the code-behind you can have something like
Protected Sub btn_click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs) Handles btn.Click
Response.Redirect("~/sendfile.ashx?ref=" & enReference, False)
Context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest()
End Sub
You will also need to add a generic handler (right-click on the project in Solution Explorer, Add->New Item... -> Visual Basic--Web--General choose "Generic Handler"; give it a name like sendfile.ashx) which is somewhat like
Imports System.IO
Public Class sendfile
Implements System.Web.IHttpHandler, IReadOnlySessionState
Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest
Dim enReference = context.Request.QueryString("ref")
' do whatever is needed to get the report from enReference '
Dim bytes As Byte() = aReport.ServerReport.Render("WORD", Nothing, mimeType, encoding, extension, streamids, warnings)
Dim downloadName = yourfilename & "." & yourextension
context.Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"
context.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=""" & downloadName & """" )
context.Response.BinaryWrite(bytes)
End Sub
ReadOnly Property IsReusable() As Boolean Implements IHttpHandler.IsReusable
Get
Return False
End Get
End Property
End Class
and you will need to work out the code to create the data to be sent.
If you don't need to use session state then you can remove the , IReadOnlySessionState part on the Implements line.
You might need to add context.Response.Flush(). If you find that the response does not have a Content-Length header, then you ought to add one so that the browser can show a meaningful download progress.

ASP.NET Downloadable Image Files?

I don't have apache support on this website, but I need to be able to allow images to be downloadable in a certain directory only. How can I do this? This site only has ASP.NET support, and it's killing me! Noticed this link: How to download files in mvc3? but not sure where to put that code at, or even if that code there would help me any.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! A Starting point or something...
Is there a way I can just do this in HTML? Like, for example, set the download link to point to an html file, where the HTML file grabs the image file and makes it downloadable, in and of itself?
So far I have the following ASP code in a file called: default.asp
Which begins the download just fine, but it downloads an empty file (download.jpg). How can I point the following code to an actual image file to download?
<%# Language=VBScript %>
<% Option Explicit
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"
Response.AddHeader "Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + "download.jpg"
%>
I have a file named, "download.jpg" even within the same directory, but it never downloads the actual image. It downloads a 90 byte empty image file instead.
I even tried this with no luck:
<%# Language=VBScript %>
<% Option Explicit
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"
Response.AddHeader "Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=07awardee.png"
Response.TransmitFile Server.MapPath("~/images/07awardee.png")
Response.End
%>
And yes, I have the 07awardee.png file in images/07awardee.png on the server root and even in the folder root where default.asp is located. Arggg! What gives here? The file is a bit bigger now at 392 bytes, but it still isn't readable as an image file... I've been searching the internet and this is supposed to work, but doesn't! What could be the problem here?
Your .aspx page with a Request.End throws a ThreadAbortException, and that's bad for server performance (too many of these can even crash a server). So you'll want to avoid that. http://weblogs.asp.net/hajan/archive/2010/09/26/why-not-to-use-httpresponse-close-and-httpresponse-end.aspx
The way I handle this problem is with a HttpHandler (.ashx) and use that to serve downloadable image files. I used some of your code because my implementation was in C# and has much more code (includes image scaling options etc):
//<%# WebHandler Language="VB" Class="DownloadImage" %> // uncomment this line!
Public Class DownloadImage : Implements IHttpHandler
Protected EnabledTypes() As String = New String() {".jpg", ".gif", ".png"}
Public Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) _
Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest
Dim request = context.Request
If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(request.QueryString("file")) Then
Dim path As String = context.Server.MapPath(request.QueryString("file"))
Dim file As System.IO.FileInfo = New System.IO.FileInfo(path)
If file.Exists And EnabledTypes.Contains(file.Extension.ToLower()) Then
context.Response.Clear()
context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", _
"attachment; filename=" & file.Name)
context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", file.Length.ToString())
context.Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"
context.Response.WriteFile(file.FullName)
Else
context.Response.ContentType = "plain/text"
context.Response.Write("This file does not exist.")
End If
Else
context.Response.Write("Please provide a file to download.")
End If
End Sub
Public ReadOnly Property IsReusable() As Boolean _
Implements IHttpHandler.IsReusable
Get
Return True
End Get
End Property
End Class
Make sure you implement a check for image files, otherwise you have a potential security problem. (Users could download web.config where database passwords are stored)
The link would become:
Download image
You should clear the header and provide the correct header and content type
Response.Clear()
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=somefilename")
Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg"
Response.TransmitFile(Server.MapPath("/xyz.jpg"));
Response.End();
OMG, I rock. Here's the way this is done. Create a file called, download.aspx, and input the following code into it:
<%# Page language="vb" runat="server" explicit="true" strict="true" %>
<script language="vb" runat="server">
Sub Page_Load(Sender As Object, E As EventArgs)
Dim strRequest As String = Request.QueryString("file")
If strRequest <> "" AND strRequest.EndsWith(".jpg") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".jpeg") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".png") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".gif") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".pdf") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".doc") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".docx") OR strRequest.EndsWith(".bmp") Then
Dim path As String = Server.MapPath(strRequest)
Dim file As System.IO.FileInfo = New System.IO.FileInfo(path)
If file.Exists Then
Response.Clear()
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" & file.Name)
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", file.Length.ToString())
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream"
Response.WriteFile(file.FullName)
Response.End
Else
Response.Write("This file does not exist.")
End If
Else
Response.Write("You do not have permission to download this file type!")
End If
End Sub
</script>
Now, when you want to get a file to download (ANY FILE), just link it like so:
Download the logo image
And that's all she wrote!

PDFHandler.ash error when there is no file

I am having an issue with my ASHX handler that is generating PDF.
When the user hits a "View PDF" button, it will look in the database for the PDF file and display it, but if there isn't a PDF file there it should display a blank page saying "no PDF available", but instead I get a "null reference" error on this line of code:
ms.WriteTo(context.Response.OutputStream)
Below is the code for the handler:
Public Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal context As HttpContext) Implements IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest
'This class takes the uniqueidentifier of an image stored in the SQL DB and sends it to the output stream
'This saves storing copies of image files on the web server as well as in the DB
context.Response.Clear()
If context.Request.QueryString("fileSurveyID") IsNot Nothing Then
Dim filesID As String = context.Request.QueryString("fileSurveyID")
Dim fileName = String.Empty
Dim ms As MemoryStream = GetPDFFile(filesID)
context.Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment;filename=" & fileName)
context.Response.Buffer = True
ms.WriteTo(context.Response.OutputStream)
context.Response.End()
Else
context.Response.Write("<p>No pdf file</p>")
End If
End Sub
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of this error?
Simple If..Then should do the trick:
Dim ms As MemoryStream = GetPDFFile(filesID)
If ms IsNot Nothing Then
context.Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
context.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment;filename=" & fileName)
context.Response.Buffer = True
ms.WriteTo(context.Response.OutputStream)
context.Response.End()
End If
You probably want to move the following out of the if:
context.Response.End()
so it execute each time regardless.
However you say the following line executes when no PDF available:
ms.WriteTo(context.Response.OutputStream)
which would suggest something wrong with your if condition

'http://www.domain.con/Image.jpg' is not a valid virtual path

In subdomain.domainname, I have a generic handler which is supposed to load images from the domainname
Dim Path As String = "http://www.domainname/"
context.Response.ContentType = "image/jpg"
context.Response.WriteFile(Path & ImgName & ".jpg")
The problem is that i cannot add a physical path, since the Responce.WriteFile accepts a physical path. And i get that valid virtual path error.
So how can i load images when images exist in domainname and my generic handler is at subdomain.domainname?
Is there any trick, i could use?
I do not want to move the handler to the domainname
Well you could download the image first and then write the buffer to the response:
Using client = New WebClient()
' This assumes that http://www.domainname.com/ returns a JPEG image
Dim file As Byte() = client.DownloadData("http://www.domainname.com/")
context.Response.ContentType = "image/jpg"
Dim filename = Path.ChangeExtension(imgFile, "jpg")
context.Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=" & filename);
context.Response.OutputStream.Write(file, 0, file.Length)
End Using
Why not just redirect the request to the non-subdomain?
context.Response.Redirect(Path & ImgName & ".jpg")
I'm just throwing out the obvious here, but aren't you missing the top-level domain, i.e. .com?
http://www.mydomain.com/

ASP.NET Filename encoding while sending file

I am sending a file from ASP.NET Page to the browser. To properly send a filename I am adding a header:
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + filename);
The problem is that when file contains white spaces (e.g. "abc def") browser receives only "abc" part of the filename. I have tried with: Server.HtmlEncode but it didn't help.
Do you have any idea how to solve this problem?
PK
Put the file name in quotes:-
Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + filename + "\"");
Don't UrlEncode. This is not the right way to escape a value for use in an HTTP structured header parameter. It only works in IE due to that browser's buggy handling, and even then not reliably.
For a space you can use a quoted-string as suggested by Anthony (+1). But the dirty truth of Content-Disposition is that there is no reliable, supported escaping scheme that can be used to put arbitrary characters such as ;, " or Unicode characters in the filename parameter. The only approach that works reliably cross-browser is to drop the filename parameter completely and put the desired filename in the URI as a trailing, UTF-8+URL-encoded path part.
See this answer for some background.
Filename with special symbols(e.g: space; # # ! $ ) or Non-Unicode characters either cannot be supported by some browsers or cause incorrect filename in client machine.
Here is an article by a Chinese called chanext, he gave a perfect way to solve this problem:
this article gave a sample code(written with c#) to show how to get perfect solution to this problem in the all four popular browsers (IE; Opera; Firefox and Chrome)
the filename "Microsoft.Asp.Net.doc" and "F ile;;!#%#^&y.doc" can both be output correctly using the way the author provided in this article.
http://ciznx.com/post/aspnetstreamdownloaddisplaynonunicodespacechar.aspx
Based on the code referenced by #chanext I cleaned it up and put it into a single extension method. Hope this can help someone.
Partial Class Uploader
Inherits Page
Private Sub UploadFile()
Dim sFileName As String
Dim oPdf As MigraDoc.Rendering.PdfDocumentRenderer
sFileName = "File Name With Spaces #22.pdf"
With Me.Request.Browser
If .Browser = "InternetExplorer" OrElse .Browser = "IE" Then
sFileName = sFileName.EncodeForIE
Else
sFileName = String.Format("""{0}""", sFileName)
End If
End With
oPdf = New MigraDoc.Rendering.PdfDocumentRenderer
oPdf.Document = FileFactory.CreatePdf()
oPdf.RenderDocument()
Using oStream As New MemoryStream
oPdf.Save(oStream, False)
Me.Response.Clear()
Me.Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
Me.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", String.Format("attachment; filename={0}", sFileName))
Me.Response.AddHeader("content-length", oStream.Length)
Me.Response.BinaryWrite(oStream.ToArray)
End Using
Me.Response.Flush()
Me.Response.End()
End Sub
End Class
Public Module StringExtensions
<Extension()>
Public Function EncodeForIE(Url As String) As String
Dim _
sReservedChars,
sEncodedString As String
sReservedChars = "$-_.+!*'(),#=&"
With New StringBuilder
Url.ToList.ForEach(Sub(C)
If Char.IsLetterOrDigit(C) OrElse sReservedChars.Contains(C) Then
.Append(C)
Else
With New StringBuilder
C.ToBytes.ToList.ForEach(Sub(B)
.AppendFormat("%{0}", Convert.ToString(B, 16))
End Sub)
sEncodedString = .ToString
End With
.Append(sEncodedString)
End If
End Sub)
Return .ToString
End With
End Function
<Extension()>
Public Function ToBytes(Chr As Char) As Byte()
Return Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Chr.ToString)
End Function
End Module

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