Download Excel file via AJAX MVC

Question

I have a large(ish) form in MVC.

I need to be able to generate an excel file containing data from a subset of that form.

The tricky bit is that this shouldn

Answer 1

CSL's answer was implemented in a project I'm working on but the problem I incurred was scaling out on Azure broke our file downloads. Instead, I was able to do this with one AJAX call:

SERVER

[HttpPost]
public FileResult DownloadInvoice(int id1, int id2)
{
    //necessary to get the filename in the success of the ajax callback
    HttpContext.Response.Headers.Add("Access-Control-Expose-Headers", "Content-Disposition");

    byte[] fileBytes = _service.GetInvoice(id1, id2);
    string fileName = "Invoice.xlsx";
    return File(fileBytes, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Octet, fileName);
}

CLIENT (modified version of Handle file download from ajax post)

$("#downloadInvoice").on("click", function() {
    $("#loaderInvoice").removeClass("d-none");

    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    var params = [];
    xhr.open('POST', "@Html.Raw(Url.Action("DownloadInvoice", "Controller", new { id1 = Model.Id1, id2 = Model.Id2 }))", true);
    xhr.responseType = 'arraybuffer';
    xhr.onload = function () {
        if (this.status === 200) {
            var filename = "";
            var disposition = xhr.getResponseHeader('Content-Disposition');
            if (disposition && disposition.indexOf('attachment') !== -1) {
                var filenameRegex = /filename[^;=\n]*=((['"]).*?\2|[^;\n]*)/;
                var matches = filenameRegex.exec(disposition);
                if (matches != null && matches[1]) filename = matches[1].replace(/['"]/g, '');
            }
            var type = xhr.getResponseHeader('Content-Type');

            var blob = typeof File === 'function'
                ? new File([this.response], filename, { type: type })
                : new Blob([this.response], { type: type });
            if (typeof window.navigator.msSaveBlob !== 'undefined') {
                // IE workaround for "HTML7007: One or more blob URLs were revoked by closing the blob for which they were created. These URLs will no longer resolve as the data backing the URL has been freed."
                window.navigator.msSaveBlob(blob, filename);
            } else {
                var URL = window.URL || window.webkitURL;
                var downloadUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob);

                if (filename) {
                    // use HTML5 a[download] attribute to specify filename
                    var a = document.createElement("a");
                    // safari doesn't support this yet
                    if (typeof a.download === 'undefined') {
                        window.location = downloadUrl;
                    } else {
                        a.href = downloadUrl;
                        a.download = filename;
                        document.body.appendChild(a);
                        a.click();
                    }
                } else {
                    window.location = downloadUrl;

                }

                setTimeout(function() {
                        URL.revokeObjectURL(downloadUrl);
                    $("#loaderInvoice").addClass("d-none");
                }, 100); // cleanup
            }
        }
    };
    xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
    xhr.send($.param(params));
});