ASP.NET stream content from memory and not from file

Question

The users have requested the option to \"download\" a csv file representation of GridView contents. Does anyone know how to do this without saving the file to the server bu

Answer 1

Implement an IHttpHandler.

I used something similar to the following in the ProcessResponse for outputing a CSV that had previously been constructed in a database table...

public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
{
    HttpResponse response = context.Response;
    HttpRequest request = context.Request;

    //Get data to output here...

    //Turn off Caching and enforce a content type that will prompt to download/save.
    response.AddHeader("Connection", "close");
    response.AddHeader("Cache-Control", "private");
    response.ContentType = "application/octect-stream";

    //Give the browser a hint at the name of the file.
    response.AddHeader("content-disposition", string.Format("attachment; filename={0}", _filename));

    //Output the CSV here...
    foreach(BatchDTO.BatchRecordsRow row in dtoBatch.BatchRecords)
        response.Output.WriteLine(row.Data);

    response.Flush();
    response.Close();
}

There are a number of libraries that make generating a CSV easier, you should just be able to pass it the Response.OutputStream to have it write to there rather than to a file stream.