How to hide a dialog box when downloading?

Rogerio Sa

I need to use this small C# app I am using to download an excel file from an internal company asp.net site. Usually I would use VBScript to person such actions but this site for some reason does not respect VBS very well. So I decided to make a small C# app in which I use "webbrowser1.navigate" to go to the report page and generate the report then from there I get the download link to the excel report itself so I use "webbrowser1.navigate" to navigate to the excel download URL but it prompts me to open or save and I want to just save automatically since this app will run on a schedule and will not have user interaction. No, I cannot use webclient o to download the file because the URL only works in the same session as the session used to generate the report. Even if I was to take the link and tried to open manually on another browser window it would not work.

6 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Guest User12y ago
Accepted answer
rather using webbrowser1.navigate you can use below code for streaming the file :

//Create a stream for the file
Stream stream = null;

//This controls how many bytes to read at a time and send to the client
int bytesToRead = 10000;

// Buffer to read bytes in chunk size specified above
byte[] buffer = new Byte[bytesToRead];

// The number of bytes read
try
{
//Create a WebRequest to get the file
HttpWebRequest fileReq = (HttpWebRequest) HttpWebRequest.Create(url);

//Create a response for this request
HttpWebResponse fileResp = (HttpWebResponse) fileReq.GetResponse();

if (fileReq.ContentLength > 0)
fileResp.ContentLength = fileReq.ContentLength;

//Get the Stream returned from the response
stream = fileResp.GetResponseStream();

// prepare the response to the client. resp is the client Response
var resp = HttpContext.Current.Response;

//Indicate the type of data being sent
resp.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";

//Name the file
resp.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"");
resp.AddHeader("Content-Length", fileResp.ContentLength.ToString());

int length;
do
{
// Verify that the client is connected.
if (resp.IsClientConnected)
{
// Read data into the buffer.
length = stream.Read(buffer, 0, bytesToRead);

// and write it out to the response's output stream
resp.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, length);

// Flush the data
resp.Flush();

//Clear the buffer
buffer = new Byte[bytesToRead];
}
else
{
// cancel the download if client has disconnected
length = -1;
}
} while (length > 0); //Repeat until no data is read
}
finally
{
if (stream != null)
{
//Close the input stream
stream.Close();
}
}
Guest User12y ago
Thanks Rogerio for accepting the response!
Looking forward for more interaction in future...
Rogerio Sa12y ago
Hi, No, the website code is not controlled by me. Think of it this way: I am creating a script (in C#)that logs into a internal company system, click the needed buttons to generate the excel report then I get the URL to the excel file and use webbrowser1.navigate(fileURL) but at this point I am prompted to "Open, Save as or Save the file" I wan to be able to navigate to the file and save automatically.
Guest User12y ago
so, is this website code controlled by you? what i understand that you want to immediately download excel rather showing user the excel link to download? Right
Rogerio Sa12y ago
Hi Sumit, Thank you for the reply. How do I capture the memorystream? I do not generate the excel myself. I only click the page to choose the options of the report and the website is what generates the report and a link to it.
Guest User12y ago
after generating excel you can send as memorystream and it'll save at browser's download folder without prompting this dialog box.