Can an ASP.NET MVC controller return an Image?

Question

Can I create a Controller that simply returns an image asset?

I would like to route this logic through a controller, whenever a URL such as the following is requeste

Answer 1

To expland on Dyland's response slightly:

Three classes implement the FileResult class:

System.Web.Mvc.FileResult
      System.Web.Mvc.FileContentResult
      System.Web.Mvc.FilePathResult
      System.Web.Mvc.FileStreamResult

They're all fairly self explanatory:

• For file path downloads where the file exists on disk, use FilePathResult - this is the easiest way and avoids you having to use Streams.
• For byte[] arrays (akin to Response.BinaryWrite), use FileContentResult.
• For byte[] arrays where you want the file to download (content-disposition: attachment), use FileStreamResult in a similar way to below, but with a MemoryStream and using GetBuffer().
• For Streams use FileStreamResult. It's called a FileStreamResult but it takes a Stream so I'd guess it works with a MemoryStream.

Below is an example of using the content-disposition technique (not tested):

    [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
    public ActionResult GetFile()
    {
        // No need to dispose the stream, MVC does it for you
        string path = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "App_Data", "myimage.png");
        FileStream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open);
        FileStreamResult result = new FileStreamResult(stream, "image/png");
        result.FileDownloadName = "image.png";
        return result;
    }