Download file on Client side using Webservice and jQuery Ajax

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I need to download an excel from clientside. Unfortunately none of the jquery plugins or methods allow you to download file by passing Headers in the request. I definitely have to pass headers in request and there is not question about it. So what i did was, i created a web service method and made an ajax call from jquery. In the webservice, i was able to create headers of my choice and then, i was able to make a request to the service layer. i get the response as HttpWebResponse and am able to write the response to the stream. The issue is, Nothing happens. The file is not downloaded or anything happens. when i debug, there are no errors. Please let me know if i am missing anything.

C#

[WebMethod]
    [ScriptMethod]
   public void PostExcel(ExcelDto searchDto)
   {
       var request =  (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("url");
       request.ContentType = "text/json";
       request.Method = "POST";
       request.Headers.Add("X-Header1-Context", "abc");
       request.Headers.Add("X-Header2-Scope", "XY");
       request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("uname", "pwd", "domain");
       request.Headers.Add("X-Header3", "PQR");
       using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream()))
       {
           streamWriter.Write(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(searchDto));
           streamWriter.Flush();
           streamWriter.Close();
       }

       HttpWebResponse httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
       ForceDownload(httpResponse, "test.xlsx");
    }

The Force Download method is where i download the file:

C#

public void ForceDownload(HttpWebResponse fileResp, string fileName)
    {
       Stream stream = null;
        int bytesToRead = 10000;
        byte[] buffer = new Byte[bytesToRead];
        try
        {
           stream = fileResp.GetResponseStream();
           var resp = HttpContext.Current.Response;
           resp.ContentType = "application/application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet";
           resp.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");
           resp.AddHeader("Content-Length", fileResp.ContentLength.ToString());
           int length;
           do
            {
                    length = stream.Read(buffer, 0, bytesToRead);
                    resp.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, length);
                    resp.Flush();
                    buffer = new Byte[bytesToRead];
            } while (length > 0); //Repeat until no data is read
        }
        finally
        {
            if (stream != null)
            {
               stream.Close();
            }
        }

    }

Posted 5-Feb-15 4:20am

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Afzaal Ahmad Zeeshan · Answer 1 · 2015-02-05T07:01:00

You actually didn't really need to create a WebService to perform an action to just let the client download the file. What you would do, is to create a hyperlink for the file link (generally to the page) from where the user would download the file.

HTML

<a href="~/DownloadFile?FileName=@Filename">Download</a>
<!-- Where Filename will be populated by a server-side variable
     Can be anything, but would be used on the server-side to push the file -->

Now once the user has reached that page, you can push the data inside that file to the user.

C#

@{
    Layout = null;
    // Get the filename
    var file = Server.MapPath("~/files/" + Request["FileName"]);
    Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=" + Request["img"]);
    Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
    // Now transmit the file
    Response.TransmitFile(file);
}

This would transmit the file from the server to the client. No need for any WebService or any other complex framework.