CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#httpwebrequestcontent-typemime-types
Daniel Revell
Daniel Revell

Reputation: 8586

Download office document without the web server trying to render it

I'm trying to download an InfoPath template that's hosted on SharePoint. If I hit the url in internet explorer it asks me where to save it and I get the correct file on my disk. If I try to do this programmatically with WebClient or HttpWebRequest then I get HTML back instead.

How can I make my request so that the web server returns the actual xsn file and doesn't try to render it in html. If internet explorer can do this then it's logical to think that I can too.

I've tried setting the Accept property of the request to application/x-microsoft-InfoPathFormTemplate but that hasn't helped. It was a shot in the dark.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 234

Answers (4)

James Curran
James Curran

Reputation: 103495

I'd suggest using Fiddler or WireShark, to see exactly how IE is sending the request, then duplicating that.

Upvotes: 1

Shawn Steward
Shawn Steward

Reputation: 6825

This is vb.net, but you should get the point. I've done this with an .aspx page that you pass the filename into, then return the content type of the file and add a header to make it an attachment, which prompts the browser to treat it as such.

Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment;filename=filename.xsn")
Response.ContentType = "application/x-microsoft-InfoPathFormTemplate"
Response.WriteFile(FilePath)  ''//Where FilePath is... the path to your file ;)
Response.Flush()
Response.End()

Upvotes: 0

Armen Michaeli
Armen Michaeli

Reputation: 9140

There is a HTTP response header that makes a HTTP user agent download a file instead of trying to display it:

Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=paper.doc

I understand that you may not have access to the server, but this is one straight-forward way to do this if you can access the server scripts.

See the HTTP/1.1 specification and/or say, Google, for more details on the header.

Upvotes: 0

Josh Lee
Josh Lee

Reputation: 177564

Have you tried spoofing Internet Explorer's User-Agent?

Upvotes: 0

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