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

I may sound quite naive, and may attract quite a criticism, but here's how I did it,
(It doesn't involve ajax for export, but it doesn't do a full postback either )

Thanks for this post and this answer.
Create a simple controller

public class HomeController : Controller
{               
   /* A demo action
    public ActionResult Index()
    {           
        return View(model);
    }
   */
    [HttpPost]
    public FileResult ExportData()
    {
        /* An example filter
        var filter = TempData["filterKeys"] as MyFilter;
        TempData.Keep();            */
        var someList = db.GetDataFromDb(/*filter*/) // filter as an example

    /*May be here's the trick, I'm setting my filter in TempData["filterKeys"] 
     in an action,(GetFilteredPartial() illustrated below) when 'searching' for the data,
     so do not really need ajax here..to pass my filters.. */

     //Some utility to convert list to Datatable
     var dt = Utility.ConvertToDataTable(someList); 

      //  I am using EPPlus nuget package 
      using (ExcelPackage pck = new ExcelPackage())
      {
          ExcelWorksheet ws = pck.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1");
          ws.Cells["A1"].LoadFromDataTable(dt, true);

            using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
            {                   
              pck.SaveAs(memoryStream);
              return File(memoryStream.ToArray(),
              "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet",
              "ExportFileName.xlsx");                    
            }                
        }   
    }

    //This is just a supporting example to illustrate setting up filters ..        
   /* [HttpPost]
    public PartialViewResult GetFilteredPartial(MyFilter filter)
    {            
        TempData["filterKeys"] = filter;
        var filteredData = db.GetConcernedData(filter);
        var model = new MainViewModel();
        model.PartialViewModel = filteredData;

        return PartialView("_SomePartialView", model);
    } */     
} 

And here are the Views..

/*Commenting out the View code, in order to focus on the imp. code     
 @model Models.MainViewModel
 @{Layout...}     

      Some code for, say, a partial View  
      

        @Html.Partial("_SomePartialView", Model.PartialViewModel)
      
  */                                                       
//The actual part.. Just **posting** this bit of data from the complete View...
//Here, you are not posting the full Form..or the complete View
   @using (Html.BeginForm("ExportData", "Home", FormMethod.Post))
    {
        
    }
//...
//