Question

I have a web MVC application that I would like to add feature that gives users the ability to download large files from my server. The users have a combination of Mac and Windows PC. I was thinking along the lines of javasripts or silverlight.

Can someone advice me on how to implement this feature?
Do you have any code examples?

Answer 1

Use the File method of Controller class.

So Create a Controller called FilesController and have an action method called DownLoad

public class FilesController : Controller
{  
   public ActionResult Download(string fileId)
   {
     var fullFilePath=FileService.GetFullPath(fileId);  // get the path to file
     return File(fullFilePath,"application/pdf","yourDownLoadName.pdf");  
   }
}

This Will return a PDF file from the specified path(fullFilePath) with the MimeType/ContentType as PDF and “yourDownLoadName.pdf” as the Downloadable file name

Users can access this like http://yourdomainname.com/Files/Download?fileId=somefileId

This method has got a bunch of overloads using file path, byte array ,stream etc..