Export CSV using jQuery AJAX call

Question

I have some code to export the results of a search to a CSV file:

$("#exportButton").click(function () {

    var url = "/Stuff/ExportSearchResults";
    var searchInput = readInput();

    $.post(url, searchInput, function (data) {
        // This is where I'm clueless.
        // I'm getting data back but not sure how to make the
        // browser show a prompt to download the file.
        console.log(data);
    });
});

At the server side (ASP.NET MVC 4) there's this:

[HttpPost]
public FileResult ExportSearchResults(SearchInput model)
{
    string csv = GenerateCsv(model);
    return File(new UTF8Encoding().GetBytes(csv), "text/csv", "Export.csv");
}

So the good thing is that I'm getting data back in the console. I'm just not sure how I would make the browser show a prompt to download a file.

Short answer, you should't use ajax for this kind of task, but a direct call instead... — Hackerman
– Hackerman, Commented Nov 9, 2016 at 23:52
doing this successfully cross browser could be painful - maybe FileSaver could help — Jaromanda X
– Jaromanda X, Commented Nov 9, 2016 at 23:53
window.location.href = '/Stuff/ExportSearchResults'; try like this — Sreepathy Sp
– Sreepathy Sp, Commented Nov 10, 2016 at 5:19

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:30:34Z

1

Here for this question we can go with comment from https://stackoverflow.com/users/5349021/sreepathy-sp

At Client side

$("#exportButton").click(function () {

       var url = "/Stuff/ExportSearchResults";
       var searchInput = readInput();

       window.location.href = '/Stuff/ExportSearchResults?searchInput='+searchInput ;
});

At server side

[HttpGet]
public FileResult ExportSearchResults(string model)
{
    string csv = GenerateCsv(model);
    Stream stream = new MemoryStream(new UTF8Encoding().GetBytes(csv));
    return File(stream , "text/csv", "Export.csv");
}

Hope this will help you out.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:30

CommunityBot

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answered Nov 10, 2016 at 7:24

Ninshid

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2 Comments

Aetherix Over a year ago

Thanks for the help. I need to use a POST though. We can't have the parameters showing up in the url.

Ninshid Over a year ago

@Aetherix : can you please give clarity for your readInput();. If its a data retrieved from database, we can recreate the post model in our method ExportSearchResults .

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