Question

Need to generate an html report from XML and corresponding XSL butI have to use memorystream instead of IO File write on server directories. For the most part I managed to create an xml

MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
XmlWriterSettings wSettings = new XmlWriterSettings();
wSettings.Indent = true;
using(XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(ms,wSettings))
{
      /**
          creating xml here
      **/
      writer.Flush();
      writer.Close();
}
return ms; // returning the memory stream to another function
           // to create html

// This Function creates 
protected string ConvertToHtml(MemoryStream xmlOutput)
{
        XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(xmlOutput);
        XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();
        xDoc.Load(xmlOutput);
        StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
        XslCompiledTransform transform = new XslCompiledTransform();
        transform.Load(reportDir + "MyXslFile.xsl");
        transform.Transform(xDoc, null, writer);
        xmlOutput.Position = 1;
        StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(xmlOutput);
        return sr.RearToEnd();
}

Somewhere along the line I am messing up with creating the HTML Report and cant figure out how to send that file to client end. I dont have much experience working with memorystream. So, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

You’re completely bypassing your transform here:

// This Function creates 
protected string ConvertToHtml(MemoryStream xmlOutput)
{
        XPathDocument document = new XPathDocument(xmlOutput);
        XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();
        xDoc.Load(xmlOutput);

        StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
        XslCompiledTransform transform = new XslCompiledTransform();
        transform.Load(reportDir + "MyXslFile.xsl");
        transform.Transform(xDoc, null, writer);

        // These lines are the problem
        //xmlOutput.Position = 1;
        //StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(xmlOutput);
        //return sr.RearToEnd();

        return writer.ToString()
}

Also, calling Flush right before you call Close on a writer is redundant as Close implies a flush operation.