Question

This is what i would like to do:

Get a 64base byte array from database (which is actually in pdf format). This works.
Then i would like to show the pdf in a webbrowser component.

I first started with saving the pdf to a file.pdf and then open it:

        byte[] bitjes = isc.GetFileById(fileid); // Getting the bytes

        FileStream stream = new FileStream(@"C:\NexusPDF\" + filename, FileMode.CreateNew);
        BinaryWriter writer = new BinaryWriter(stream);
        writer.Write(bitjes, 0, bitjes.Length);
        writer.Close();

        webBrowser.Navigate(@"C:\NexusPDF\" + filename);

But that gave me all sorts of problems involving read/write acces. So i figured i have to use the memorystream class to solve this problem.

        byte[] bitjes = isc.GetFileById(fileid);

        MemoryStream memstream = new MemoryStream(bitjes);

        BinaryWriter writer = new BinaryWriter(memstream);
        writer.Write(bitjes, 0, bitjes.Length);
        writer.Close();

But here’s where i’m stuck! I can’t just show this in a webBrowser component can i?
Do i have to use the binaryreader before i can show the pdf?

Am i approaching this problem the right way, or are there better alternatives?

Main thing is that i don’t want to save the file on disk.

Any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

You may be able to use the data URL scheme. This URL scheme specifies the content inline.

webBrowser.Navigate("data:application/pdf;base64," + X);

Where X is the base 64 string.

No need to convert the base 64 PDF string into a byte array!

See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2397.txt for more details.