Returning binary file from controller in ASP.NET Web API
Try using a simple HttpResponseMessage with its Content property set to a StreamContent:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 |
// using System.IO; // using System.Net.Http; // using System.Net.Http.Headers; public HttpResponseMessage Post(string version, string environment, string filetype) { var path = @"C:\Temp\test.exe"; HttpResponseMessage result = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK); var stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read); result.Content = new StreamContent(stream); result.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/octet-stream"); return result; } |
A few things to note about the stream used:
- You must not call
stream.Dispose(), since Web API still needs to be able to access it when it processes the controller method’sresultto send data back to the client. Therefore, do not use ausing (var stream = …)block. Web API will dispose the stream for you. - Make sure that the stream has its current position set to 0 (i.e. the beginning of the stream’s data). In the above example, this is a given since you’ve only just opened the file. However, in other scenarios (such as when you first write some binary data to a
MemoryStream), make sure tostream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);or setstream.Position = 0; - With file streams, explicitly specifying
FileAccess.Readpermission can help prevent access rights issues on web servers; IIS application pool accounts are often given only read / list / execute access rights to the wwwroot.