Returning a file to View/Download in ASP.NET MVC

public ActionResult Download()
{
    var document = ...
    var cd = new System.Net.Mime.ContentDisposition
    {
        // for example foo.bak
        FileName = document.FileName, 

        // always prompt the user for downloading, set to true if you want 
        // the browser to try to show the file inline
        Inline = false, 
    };
    Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", cd.ToString());
    return File(document.Data, document.ContentType);
}

NOTE: This example code above fails to properly account for international characters in the filename. See RFC6266 for the relevant standardization. I believe recent versions of ASP.Net MVC's File() method and the ContentDispositionHeaderValue class properly accounts for this. - Oskar 2016-02-25

I had trouble with the accepted answer due to no type hinting on the "document" variable: var document = ... So I'm posting what worked for me as an alternative in case anybody else is having trouble.

public ActionResult DownloadFile()
{
    string filename = "File.pdf";
    string filepath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + "/Path/To/File/" + filename;
    byte[] filedata = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(filepath);
    string contentType = MimeMapping.GetMimeMapping(filepath);

    var cd = new System.Net.Mime.ContentDisposition
    {
        FileName = filename,
        Inline = true,
    };

    Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", cd.ToString());

    return File(filedata, contentType);
}

To view file (txt for example):

return File("~/TextFileInRootDir.txt", MediaTypeNames.Text.Plain);

To download file (txt for example):

return File("~/TextFileInRootDir.txt", MediaTypeNames.Text.Plain, "TextFile.txt");

note: to download file we should pass fileDownloadName argument

Darin Dimitrov's answer is correct. Just an addition:

Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", cd.ToString()); may cause the browser to fail rendering the file if your response already contains a "Content-Disposition" header. In that case, you may want to use:

Response.Headers.Add("Content-Disposition", cd.ToString());

I believe this answer is cleaner, (based on https://stackoverflow.com/a/3007668/550975)

    public ActionResult GetAttachment(long id)
    {
        FileAttachment attachment;
        using (var db = new TheContext())
        {
            attachment = db.FileAttachments.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Id == id);
        }

        return File(attachment.FileData, "application/force-download", Path.GetFileName(attachment.FileName));
    }

Below code worked for me for getting a pdf file from an API service and response it out to the browser - hope it helps;

public async Task<FileResult> PrintPdfStatements(string fileName)
    {
         var fileContent = await GetFileStreamAsync(fileName);
         var fileContentBytes = ((MemoryStream)fileContent).ToArray();
         return File(fileContentBytes, System.Net.Mime.MediaTypeNames.Application.Pdf);
    }

FileVirtualPath --> Research\Global Office Review.pdf

public virtual ActionResult GetFile()
{
    return File(FileVirtualPath, "application/force-download", Path.GetFileName(FileVirtualPath));
}

Action method needs to return FileResult with either a stream, byte[], or virtual path of the file. You will also need to know the content-type of the file being downloaded. Here is a sample (quick/dirty) utility method. Sample video link How to download files using asp.net core

[Route("api/[controller]")]
public class DownloadController : Controller
{
    [HttpGet]
    public async Task<IActionResult> Download()
    {
        var path = @"C:\Vetrivel\winforms.png";
        var memory = new MemoryStream();
        using (var stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open))
        {
            await stream.CopyToAsync(memory);
        }
        memory.Position = 0;
        var ext = Path.GetExtension(path).ToLowerInvariant();
        return File(memory, GetMimeTypes()[ext], Path.GetFileName(path));
    }

    private Dictionary<string, string> GetMimeTypes()
    {
        return new Dictionary<string, string>
        {
            {".txt", "text/plain"},
            {".pdf", "application/pdf"},
            {".doc", "application/vnd.ms-word"},
            {".docx", "application/vnd.ms-word"},
            {".png", "image/png"},
            {".jpg", "image/jpeg"},
            ...
        };
    }
}

If, like me, you've come to this topic via Razor components as you're learning Blazor, then you'll find you need to think a little more outside of the box to solve this problem. It's a bit of a minefield if (also like me) Blazor is your first forray into the MVC-type world, as the documentation isn't as helpful for such 'menial' tasks.

So, at the time of writing, you cannot achieve this using vanilla Blazor/Razor without embedding an MVC controller to handle the file download part an example of which is as below:

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Net.Http.Headers;

[Route("api/[controller]")]
[ApiController]
public class FileHandlingController : ControllerBase
{
    [HttpGet]
    public FileContentResult Download(int attachmentId)
    {
        TaskAttachment taskFile = null;

        if (attachmentId > 0)
        {
            // taskFile = <your code to get the file>
            // which assumes it's an object with relevant properties as required below

            if (taskFile != null)
            {
                var cd = new System.Net.Http.Headers.ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment")
                {
                    FileNameStar = taskFile.Filename
                };

                Response.Headers.Add(HeaderNames.ContentDisposition, cd.ToString());
            }
        }

        return new FileContentResult(taskFile?.FileData, taskFile?.FileContentType);
    }
}

Next, make sure your application startup (Startup.cs) is configured to correctly use MVC and has the following line present (add it if not):

        services.AddMvc();

.. and then finally modify your component to link to the controller, for example (iterative based example using a custom class):

    <tbody>
        @foreach (var attachment in yourAttachments)
        {
        <tr>
            <td><a href="api/FileHandling?attachmentId=@attachment.TaskAttachmentId" target="_blank">@attachment.Filename</a> </td>
            <td>@attachment.CreatedUser</td>
            <td>@attachment.Created?.ToString("dd MMM yyyy")</td>
            <td><ul><li class="oi oi-circle-x delete-attachment"></li></ul></td>
        </tr>
        }
        </tbody>

Hopefully this helps anyone who struggled (like me!) to get an appropriate answer to this seemingly simple question in the realms of Blazor…!