File Upload ASP.NET MVC 3.0

Solution 1:

You don't use a file input control. Server side controls are not used in ASP.NET MVC. Checkout the following blog post which illustrates how to achieve this in ASP.NET MVC.

So you would start by creating an HTML form which would contain a file input:

@using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "Home", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" }))
{
    <input type="file" name="file" />
    <input type="submit" value="OK" />
}

and then you would have a controller to handle the upload:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    // This action renders the form
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        return View();
    }

    // This action handles the form POST and the upload
    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Index(HttpPostedFileBase file)
    {
        // Verify that the user selected a file
        if (file != null && file.ContentLength > 0) 
        {
            // extract only the filename
            var fileName = Path.GetFileName(file.FileName);
            // store the file inside ~/App_Data/uploads folder
            var path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/uploads"), fileName);
            file.SaveAs(path);
        }
        // redirect back to the index action to show the form once again
        return RedirectToAction("Index");        
    }
}

Solution 2:

to transfer to byte[] (e.g. for saving to DB):

using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream()) {
    file.InputStream.CopyTo(ms);
    byte[] array = ms.GetBuffer();
}

To transfer the input stream directly into the database, without storing it in the memory you can use this class taken from here and a bit changed:

public class VarbinaryStream : Stream {
private SqlConnection _Connection;

private string _TableName;
private string _BinaryColumn;
private string _KeyColumn;
private int _KeyValue;

private long _Offset;

private SqlDataReader _SQLReader;
private long _SQLReadPosition;

private bool _AllowedToRead = false;

public VarbinaryStream(
    string ConnectionString,
    string TableName,
    string BinaryColumn,
    string KeyColumn,
    int KeyValue,
    bool AllowRead = false)
{
  // create own connection with the connection string.
  _Connection = new SqlConnection(ConnectionString);

  _TableName = TableName;
  _BinaryColumn = BinaryColumn;
  _KeyColumn = KeyColumn;
  _KeyValue = KeyValue;


  // only query the database for a result if we are going to be reading, otherwise skip.
  _AllowedToRead = AllowRead;
  if (_AllowedToRead == true)
  {
    try
    {
      if (_Connection.State != ConnectionState.Open)
        _Connection.Open();

      SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(
                      @"SELECT TOP 1 [" + _BinaryColumn + @"]
                            FROM [dbo].[" + _TableName + @"]
                            WHERE [" + _KeyColumn + "] = @id",
                  _Connection);

      cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@id", _KeyValue));

      _SQLReader = cmd.ExecuteReader(
          CommandBehavior.SequentialAccess |
          CommandBehavior.SingleResult |
          CommandBehavior.SingleRow |
          CommandBehavior.CloseConnection);

      _SQLReader.Read();
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
      // log errors here
    }
  }
}

// this method will be called as part of the Stream ímplementation when we try to write to our VarbinaryStream class.
public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int index, int count)
{
  try
  {
    if (_Connection.State != ConnectionState.Open)
      _Connection.Open();

    if (_Offset == 0)
    {
      // for the first write we just send the bytes to the Column
      SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(
                                  @"UPDATE [dbo].[" + _TableName + @"]
                                            SET [" + _BinaryColumn + @"] = @firstchunk 
                                        WHERE [" + _KeyColumn + "] = @id",
                              _Connection);

      cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@firstchunk", buffer));
      cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@id", _KeyValue));

      cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

      _Offset = count;
    }
    else
    {
      // for all updates after the first one we use the TSQL command .WRITE() to append the data in the database
      SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(
                              @"UPDATE [dbo].[" + _TableName + @"]
                                        SET [" + _BinaryColumn + @"].WRITE(@chunk, NULL, @length)
                                    WHERE [" + _KeyColumn + "] = @id",
                           _Connection);

      cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@chunk", buffer));
      cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@length", count));
      cmd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@id", _KeyValue));

      cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

      _Offset += count;
    }
  }
  catch (Exception e)
  {
    // log errors here
  }
}

// this method will be called as part of the Stream ímplementation when we try to read from our VarbinaryStream class.
public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count)
{
  try
  {
    long bytesRead = _SQLReader.GetBytes(0, _SQLReadPosition, buffer, offset, count);
    _SQLReadPosition += bytesRead;
    return (int)bytesRead;
  }
  catch (Exception e)
  {
    // log errors here
  }
  return -1;
}
public override bool CanRead
{
  get { return _AllowedToRead; }
}

protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
  if (_Connection != null)
  {
    if (_Connection.State != ConnectionState.Closed)
      try { _Connection.Close();           }
      catch { }
    _Connection.Dispose();
  }
  base.Dispose(disposing);
}

#region unimplemented methods
public override bool CanSeek
{
  get { return false; }
}

public override bool CanWrite
{
  get { return true; }
}

public override void Flush()
{
  throw new NotImplementedException();
}

public override long Length
{
  get { throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}

public override long Position
{
  get
  {
    throw new NotImplementedException();
  }
  set
  {
    throw new NotImplementedException();
  }
}
public override long Seek(long offset, SeekOrigin origin)
{
  throw new NotImplementedException();
}

public override void SetLength(long value)
{
  throw new NotImplementedException();
}
#endregion unimplemented methods  }

and the usage:

  using (var filestream = new VarbinaryStream(
                            "Connection_String",
                            "Table_Name",
                            "Varbinary_Column_name",
                            "Key_Column_Name",
                            keyValueId,
                            true))
  {
    postedFile.InputStream.CopyTo(filestream);
  }

Solution 3:

Alternative method to transfer to byte[] (for saving to DB).

@Arthur's method works pretty good, but doesn't copy perfectly so MS Office documents may fail to open after retrieving them from the database. MemoryStream.GetBuffer() can return extra empty bytes at the end of the byte[], but you can fix that by using MemoryStream.ToArray() instead. However, I found this alternative to work perfectly for all file types:

using (var binaryReader = new BinaryReader(file.InputStream))
{
    byte[] array = binaryReader.ReadBytes(file.ContentLength);
}

Here's my full code:

Document Class:

public class Document
{
    public int? DocumentID { get; set; }
    public string FileName { get; set; }
    public byte[] Data { get; set; }
    public string ContentType { get; set; }
    public int? ContentLength { get; set; }

    public Document()
    {
        DocumentID = 0;
        FileName = "New File";
        Data = new byte[] { };
        ContentType = "";
        ContentLength = 0;
    }
}

File Download:

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult GetDocument(int? documentID)
{
    // Get document from database
    var doc = dataLayer.GetDocument(documentID);

    // Convert to ContentDisposition
    var cd = new System.Net.Mime.ContentDisposition
    {
        FileName = doc.FileName, 

        // Prompt the user for downloading; set to true if you want 
        // the browser to try to show the file 'inline' (display in-browser
        // without prompting to download file).  Set to false if you 
        // want to always prompt them to download the file.
        Inline = true, 
    };
    Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition", cd.ToString());

    // View document
    return File(doc.Data, doc.ContentType);
}

File Upload:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult GetDocument(HttpPostedFileBase file)
{
    // Verify that the user selected a file
    if (file != null && file.ContentLength > 0)
    {
        // Get file info
        var fileName = Path.GetFileName(file.FileName);
        var contentLength = file.ContentLength;
        var contentType = file.ContentType;

        // Get file data
        byte[] data = new byte[] { };
        using (var binaryReader = new BinaryReader(file.InputStream))
        {
            data = binaryReader.ReadBytes(file.ContentLength);
        }

        // Save to database
        Document doc = new Document()
        {
            FileName = fileName,
            Data = data,
            ContentType = contentType,
            ContentLength = contentLength,
        };
        dataLayer.SaveDocument(doc);

        // Show success ...
        return RedirectToAction("Index");
    }
    else
    {
        // Show error ...
        return View("Foo");
    }
}

View (snippet):

@using (Html.BeginForm("GetDocument", "Home", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" }))
{
    <input type="file" name="file" />
    <input type="submit" value="Upload File" />
}