How to hide a dialog box when downloading?

Question

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.

Sumit Jolly · 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(); } }

Sumit Jolly · Answer

after generating excel you can send as memorystream and it'll save at browser's download folder without prompting this dialog box.

Sumit Jolly · Answer

Thanks Rogerio for accepting the response! Looking forward for more interaction in future...

Rogerio Sa · Answer

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.

Sumit Jolly · Answer

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 Sa · Answer

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.