Updating a page before initiating a download? - asp.net

I've got a page that allows users to enter search criteria and then display matching records. It also has a download button to enable the user to download matching records.
How can I code it so that clicking on "Download" will first refresh the record display before downloading the data?
This is the code that I'm using for the download:
Response.ClearContent();
Response.ClearHeaders();
using (MemoryStream outputStream = new MemoryStream())
{
// some details elided...
outputStream.Write(documentData, 0, documentData.Count());
string fileName = GenerateFileName();
Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition", String.Format("attachment; filename={0}", fileName));
outputStream.Flush();
outputStream.WriteTo(Response.OutputStream);
}
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();

Only one response you can send back to the browser, ether you update the data, ether you send the new header to start the download.
To make both of them you need to change your steps probably using some javascript and/or ajax call.
How HTTP protocol works: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec1.html

Construct a javascript method that first updates the page via AJAX, then proceeds to make a non-AJAX request to download the file. As Aristos says, this cannot be done in a single request. A different solution could be to download the file first (non-ajax), then refresh the page without ajax. Normally, javascript code cannot be executed correctly after a new non-ajax request is made, but if it only downloads a file, I think the code might continue its execution to post the next request.

Related

Asp.Net 6.0 Redirect user to a URL containing json content and start download

I have a scenario where the user passes a fileName to download.
We don't download the file on the server and stream back to the user because of bandwidth restrictions
We get the file path to download, and redirect to the location where the json file would be hosted
[Route("[controller]/DownloadJsonFile")]
public async Task DownloadJsonFile(string fileName)
{
//Get the file name
string fileToDownload = "https://hostedfilelocation/....test.json"
Response.Redirect(fileToDownload);
}
Currently, this method ends up rendering the Json content on the browser.
Is there a way so that the browser can start automatically downloading the file?
That way it wouldn't take super long to render the file on the browser.
P.S. If the file is of type zip or gzip, it is not rendered on the browser but rather is automatically downloaded.
The application is a .Net 6 Asp.Net MVC application
I have tried the below code but the behavior is the same but it renders json on the browser instead of downloading it.
string fileToDownload = "https://hostedfilelocation/....test.json"
HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Response;
response.Clear();
response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
response.Headers.Add("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + fileName);
Response.Redirect(fileToDownload);
The approaches mentioned in this blog post are all mentioning rendering the file in an iframe but I want the download happen on the client side.
Download File via browser redirect
If you want to download it directly, add the download attribute:
<a class='download-file-link' target='_blank' href='DownloadJsonFile' download="somefilename">

Execute code after Excel Download in ASP.NET

I'm having a piece of code which downloads excel of Invalid records after Import.
I want to refresh a grid after this kind of partial successful import. But, code after excel auto download is not executing.
Response.Clear();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.ClearContent();
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=" + PathToExcelFile);
Response.AddHeader("Content-Type", "application/Excel");
Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", file.Length.ToString());
Response.WriteFile(file.FullName);
HttpContext.Current.Response.Flush(); // Sends all currently buffered output to the client.
HttpContext.Current.Response.SuppressContent = true; // Gets or sets a value indicating whether to send HTTP content to the client.
HttpContext.Current.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest();
I had found that Response.Flush() will throw an Thread Abort exception. Hence changed it to CompleteRequest(). But, still no luck.
Not sure what I'm doing wrong?
Save the file name/path etc. to ViewState variables, then call window.open to a separate download.aspx page which processes the downloading of the file. In the Download page reference the ViewState variables you previously set. In the original (not the download) page you can execute what ever code you like after the window.open call.

Avoiding Protected view when opening streamed Excel documents

We have an ASP.NET application which dynamically generates Excel documents and streams them to the client, using Response.WriteFile, see code below. Note that the document is deleted once the file has been written to the client. Thus, no documents are ever left on the server.
However, my client's users has now all upgraded to Office 2010, and now the documents will open in "Protected View". In order to edit the document, the user has to click "Enable editing" first. This is considered unacceptable for the users.
The reason that this happens is that streamed documents are placed in the Temporary Internet files, and this is considered a "potentially unsafe location". And documents in such locations are opened in protected view. I am just hoping there is some way to work around this.
Theoretically, I could place the document in a folder which is accessible from the client, and redirect to the document.
This solution is not an option, however. Firstly, since the document would be left on the server, it could be accessible for other users, which is a problem since the documents may contain confidential data.
There are other reasons why this is not a vialable option.
An other theoretical workaround would be to ask all users to disable the setting "Enable protected view for files located in potentially unsafe locations". Naturally, this is not an option either.
So, in short, is there anyway to avoid the documents to be opened in "Protected view" while using the streaming technique described below?
Response.Buffer = true;
Response.Clear();
Response.AddHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");
Response.Expires = 0;
Response.AddHeader("Content-Type", contentType);
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=" + proposedFilename);
Response.WriteFile(dstFullPathName);
Response.Flush();
Response.Close();
File.Delete(dstFullPathName);
HttpContext.Current.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest();

Send XML File to client

I have an XDocument object that needs to be downloaded by the client. This xml will be generated on page_load and then sent to the user as a download.
I cant figgure out how to send the object to the client without having an acctual file.
Any ideas?
As stated i checked this other post not quite the same but close enough.
Response.Clear();
Response.ContentType = "text/xml";
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition","attachment;filename=" + DateTime.Now+".xml");
Response.Write(doc.ToString());
Response.End();

Call an asp.net page (ashx handler) from a different asp.net page

I have a admin page in asp.net that adds data to a database. This database is available as a JSON string to external websites, however, since it's a lot of data, the external websites cache this data locally.
I want to be able to ping the external websites to let them know the data has changed so they can referesh their cache. I figure I can setup an ASHX handler that receives a parameter telling them what data has changed, so they can both delete that data and refresh it.
The only part I'm not sure about is the best way to call this external page from my admin page. Do I just do a regular WebRequest and discard the result? or is there a simpler way to call a page from code when you don't need the response?
Basically I just want to "ping" this page, so it knows it needs to refresh.
thanks!
If you just want to call the remote page, you can use the WebRequest class.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/debx8sh9.aspx
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://my.domain.ext/page.ashx");
using(WebResponse response = request.GetResponse()) {
response.Close();
}
If you want to do more advanced stuff a webservice would be more appropriate.
You could have a flag set up in the database. That would turn this into a much simpler task.
If no alternative exists you can use the WebClient class:
using (var wc = new WebClient())
{
wc.DownloadString(address);
}

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