Opening a server file on client machine...

[brucegonewild]

Hi there,
My users generate certain reports through our website. Once they're done creating these reports, they need to export these reports back to their local box. So what I need to do is:
1. Create a temp file and write the contents of the report to this file
2. Get user to "Save" this temp file to their local drive so they can later on open/print/modify the file.

As for writing to this temp file, I simply use: System.IO.Path.GetTempFileName() and I write the content of the report to it.

My problem is how do I get the users to actually save this file in their local machine?

Just to give you a background, the user clicks on a button saying "Export Report". The next thing, the report gets saved on a temp file in server. The last step should prompt the user to save the file to their local box...

Any help is MUCH appreciated...

cheers!

 

[jmeckley]

after the file is saved you then need to open the report in a stream. convert the stream to a byte array. close the file and delete the report on the server. then write the bytes to the response stream with the appropriate headers. use a generic handler (ashx) to do this, not a webform.

for examples google asp.net generic handler, or open image from database. while this is getting a image from a db instead of a file from the server the concepts are the same.

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.