Reading and Displaying Uploaded text Files in MVC

Question

Is it possible to read uploaded text files e.g .txt and display the content in a textbox ? I want to do a file conversion of the uploaded files. I've managed to upload and validate the files I would like at the click of a button to read the contents and display them in a textbox ready for conversion. How would I go about doing this? Upload class

public class UploadedFile
{
    public long Size { get; set; }
    public string Path { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
   // public int Length { get; set; }
    public string extension { get; set; }
}

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    [HttpGet]
    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your ASP.NET MVC application.";

        return View();
    }
    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Index(HttpPostedFileBase file)
    {
        var supportedTypes = new[] { "txt", "rtf", "html", "xaml", "xslx" ,"pdf", "doc", "docx", "csv" };

        var fileExt = System.IO.Path.GetExtension(file.FileName).Substring(1);

        if (!supportedTypes.Contains(fileExt))
        {
            ModelState.AddModelError("file", "Invalid type. Only the following types (txt, rtf, html, xslx, pdf, xaml, doc, docx, csv) are supported.");
            return View();
        }
        if (file.ContentLength > 200000)
        {
            ModelState.AddModelError("file", "The size of the file should not exceed 200 KB");
            return View();
        }
        if (file.ContentLength > 0)
        {


            var fileName = Path.GetFileName(file.FileName);
            var path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/uploads"), fileName);
            file.SaveAs(path);
        }

        return RedirectToAction("Index");
    }

    public ActionResult About()
    {
       var uploadedFiles = new List<UploadedFile>();
        var files = Directory.GetFiles(Server.MapPath("~/uploads"));
        foreach(var file in files)
        {
            var fileInfo = new FileInfo(file);
            var uploadedFile = new UploadedFile() {Name = Path.GetFileName(file)};
            uploadedFile.Size = fileInfo.Length;
            uploadedFile.extension = Path.GetExtension(file);

            uploadedFile.Path = ("~/uploads/") + Path.GetFileName(file);

            uploadedFiles.Add(uploadedFile);
        }
        return View(uploadedFiles);
    }
}

So far the files uploaded are listed in a table.I would like to read and display the contents if the button is Clicked and the contents placed inside the text area below the table. So I can perform conversion.

enter image description here How would I achieve this? Thanks

`<script>$('btnreadfile').click(function () {
    document.location = '@Url.Action("ReadTextFile","Home")'; });</script>
      <input id="btnreadfile" name="btnReadFile" type="submit" value="Read File"/>

    `My button Code

What exactly are you not sure on how to do? Reading the uploaded file? Passing the file content to a view? — rossisdead, May 08 '13 at 21:02
Reading the uploaded file that has been checked. I tried the answer below but the script isn't being initiated as I don't know where to put it exactly. — b0w3rb0w3r, May 08 '13 at 21:07
@user2268970 let me know if my answer was helpful or if you had any problem using this code. — HaBo, May 09 '13 at 01:26
@HaBo Sorry your answer didnt help much. I've now changed the text box to a button and i'm still stuck current code is ` ` not sure where to go from here — b0w3rb0w3r, May 09 '13 at 01:29
@user2268970 let me see if i can help you with this. can you share your mark up and explain me what you want here. you can paste mark up here http://jsfiddle.net/habo/tNUTg/ — HaBo, May 09 '13 at 01:31
@user2268970 mark up means HTML. confirm if I understand it correctly. when you click on button you should go the code and read the file text and show that text in textarea? — HaBo, May 09 '13 at 01:40
@HaBo yes this is correct. Clicking the button should read the text file then display contents in textarea — b0w3rb0w3r, May 09 '13 at 01:44
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/29625/discussion-between-user2268970-and-habo) — b0w3rb0w3r, May 09 '13 at 01:49

HaBo · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-09T03:20:19.550

Working code. Fully tested

in you _Layout.cshtml

<head>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js"></script>
</head>

in your About.cshtml

Table mark up

<table style="background-color: lightgreen; border: solid 2px black;">
    <tr>
        <td>
            <b>Name</b>
        </td>
        <td>
            <b>Size</b>
        </td>
        <td>
            <b>Preview</b>
        </td>
        <td>
            <b>Read File</b>
        </td>
    </tr>
    @foreach (var file in Model)
    {    
        <tr>
            <td>
                @file.Name
            </td>
            <td>
                @(file.Size / 1000) KB
            </td>
            <td>
                @(file.extension)
            </td>
            <td>
                <input id="btnreadfile" name="@file.Name" class='btnClick' type="button" value="Read File"/>
                <textarea rows="4" cols="50">
</textarea>
            </td>
        </tr>   
    }
</table>

in your About.cshtml all the way bottom add this script

<script>
    $.ajax({
        url: "/Home/ReadTextFile", 
        type: "GET",
        data: { fileName: $(this).attr("name") },
        DataType: "text",
        success: function (str) {
            alert(str);
            $("textarea").val(str); // this line has to be replaced with more dynamic jQuery selector that can select this button next textarea
            //$(this).next("textarea").val(str);
        },
        error: function (err) {
            alert(err);
        }
    });
});
</script>

in Your Controller

Add reference using System.Runtime.InteropServices.ComTypes;
add a JsonResult Method

public JsonResult ReadTextFile(string fileName)
        {
            string retString = string.Empty;
            string path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/uploads") , fileName );
            if (System.IO.File.Exists(path))
            {
                if (Path.GetExtension(path) == "doc" || Path.GetExtension(path) == ".docx")
                {
                    Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application word = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Application();
                    object miss = System.Reflection.Missing.Value;
                    object readOnly = true;
                    object wordPath = path;
                    Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.Document docs = word.Documents.Open(
                        ref wordPath, 
                        ref miss, 
                        ref readOnly, 
                        ref miss, ref miss, ref miss, 
                        ref miss, ref miss, ref miss, 
                        ref miss, ref miss, ref miss, 
                        ref miss, ref miss, ref miss, ref miss);
                    for (int i = 0; i < docs.Paragraphs.Count; i++)
                    {
                        retString += " \r\n " + docs.Paragraphs[i + 1].Range.Text.ToString();
                    }
                }
                else if (Path.GetExtension(path) == "txt")
                {
                    using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(path))
                    {
                        retString = sr.ReadToEnd();
                    }
                }
            }
            return Json(retString, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
        }

Note: I have considered to read only files with extension .doc, .docx and .txt any other extensions should be handled further

Where does the first segment of the code go? Do I need to create a new class? — b0w3rb0w3r, May 08 '13 at 19:52
@HaBo: Pretty much every line of both of these code samples is invalid. The javascript: Checked, Value, "ulr", DataType, "cjeckbox" are all either incorrectly cased or incorrectly spelt. The hardcoded directory of C:\temp and the assumption that all the files have .txt extensions. The ReadAllLines and then calling ToString() on a string array(which will not return the file content, it'll return a string that literally says [System.String[]]". Did you test anything about the code you posted? — rossisdead, May 08 '13 at 21:14
@rossisdead it was a pseudo code, id id not test it. I should have explained it in the answer. But your are right on string array tostirng() i changed it. — HaBo, May 08 '13 at 21:50
@HaBo great work. can you please explain the same about excel file. what i am trying to read an excel file is not working. can you please give the favour. — Reshav, Apr 20 '15 at 12:48
@youngtech http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15793442/how-to-read-data-from-excel-file-using-c-sharp?answertab=active#tab-top — HaBo, Apr 20 '15 at 13:46

Reading and Displaying Uploaded text Files in MVC

1 Answers1

Linked