What is the best way to upload files with ASP.NET MVC 2?

Question

What is the best method for uploading files of variable size (either very large or very small to an ASP.NET MVC 2 application file system)?

This is what I understa

Answer 1

I use this javascript tool

This is the controller (I double check cause IE has a strange behavior) :

<HttpPost()> _
Function UploadExcelPriceList(ByVal id As String) As System.String

    Dim bResult As Boolean = False
    Dim IsIE As Boolean = False
    Dim sFileName As String = ""

    If (Request.Files Is Nothing) OrElse (Request.Files.Count = 0) Then
        If String.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.Params("qqfile")) Then
            Return ("{success:false, error:'request file is empty'}")
        Else
            sFileName = Request.Params("qqfile").ToString
        End If
    Else
        sFileName = Request.Files(0).FileName
        IsIE = True
    End If

    If String.IsNullOrEmpty(sFileName) Then
        Return ("{success:false, error:'request file is empty'}")
    End If

    Dim DocumentName As String = Id & Path.GetExtension(sFileName)

    If IsIE Then
        Try
            Request.Files(0).SaveAs(Path.Combine(My.Settings.TempFolder, DocumentName))
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return ("{success:false, error:'" & ex.Message & "'}")
        End Try
    Else
        Try
            If (Request.InputStream IsNot Nothing) AndAlso (Request.InputStream.CanRead) AndAlso (Request.InputStream.Length > 0) Then
                Using fileStream As FileStream = New FileStream(Path.Combine(My.Settings.TempFolder, DocumentName), FileMode.Create)
                    Dim FileBytes(Core.Convert.ToInt32(Request.InputStream.Length)) As Byte
                    Dim bytesRead As Int32 = 0
                    bytesRead = Request.InputStream.Read(FileBytes, 0, FileBytes.Length)
                    fileStream.Write(FileBytes, 0, bytesRead)
                    fileStream.Flush()
                    fileStream.Close()
                    bytesRead = Nothing
                End Using
            End If
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return ("{success:false, error:'" & ex.Message & "'}")
        End Try
    End If

    Return ("{success:true, id: '" & Id & "'}")

End Function

I put this HTML in my View:

<div id="PopupExcelUploader" title="Carica Listino Excel">
    <div id="uploaderFile"></div>
</div>

and this is the javascript:

function CreateFileUploader() {
    var uploader = new qq.FileUploader({
        element: $('#uploaderFile')[0],
        template: '<div class="qq-uploader">' +
                              '<div class="qq-upload-drop-area"><span>Drop files here to upload</span></div>' +
                              '<div class="qq-upload-button ui-button ui-widget ui-corner-all ui-button-text-only ui-state-default">Seleziona il Listino Excel</div>' +
                              '<ul class="qq-upload-list"></ul>' +
                              '</div>',
        hoverClass: 'ui-state-hover',
        focusClass: 'ui-state-focus',
        action: UploaderAction,
        allowedExtensions: ['xls', 'xlsx'],
        params: { id: ModelId },
        onSubmit: function(file, ext) {
        },
        onComplete: function(id, fileName, responseJSON) {
            if ((responseJSON.success == null) || (responseJSON.success == 'false')) {
                $.jGrowl("Error!", { theme: 'MessageError', life: 3000 });
            }
            else {
                documentUploaded = true;
                $.jGrowl("Document uploaded successfully!", { theme: 'MessageOk', life: 1800 });
                window.setTimeout(function() {
                    $("#PopupExcelUploader").dialog('close');
                    $("#PriceListDynamicGrid").trigger("reloadGrid");
                }, 3000);
            }
        }
    });
}

Answer 2

If I remember correctly from ASP.NET 2.0 large files are being flushed to disk, so even using HttpPostedFileBase there should not be any memory/performance problems. I am not sure asynccontrollers is an solutions here, asynccontrollers is for long running server processes. For an example off AsyncControllers see http://www.aaronstannard.com/post/2011/01/06/asynchonrous-controllers-ASPNET-mvc.aspx