ASP .NET MVC - Have a controller method that returns an image in the response?

Question

How can I make a controller method called GetMyImage() which returns an image as the response (that is, the content of the image itself)?

I thought of changing the return type from ActionResult to string, but that doesn't seem to work as expected.

what do you mean 'returns an image' what Type is it at that time? — naspinski, Feb 13 '12 at 18:46

amit_g · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-13T18:54:39.177

20

Return FilePathResult using File method of controller

public ActionResult GetMyImage(string ImageID)
{
    // Construct absolute image path
    var imagePath = "whatever";

    return base.File(imagePath, "image/jpg");
}

There are several overloads of File method. Use whatever is most appropriate for your situation. For example if you wanted to send Content-Disposition header so that the user gets the SaveAs dialog instead of seeing the image in the browser you would pass in the third parameter string fileDownloadName.

edited Feb 13 '12 at 18:54

answered Feb 13 '12 at 18:43

amit_g

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Wow, you gotta love ASP.NET MVC. – Mathias Lykkegaard Lorenzen Feb 13 '12 at 18:55

score 4 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:33

4

Check out the FileResult class. For example usage see here.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:33

Community

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answered Feb 13 '12 at 18:42

Nate

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score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 22 '16 at 02:22

4

You can use FileContentResult like this:

byte[] imageData = GetImage(...); // or whatever
return File(imageData, "image/jpeg");

edited Aug 22 '16 at 02:22

Guilherme Branco Stracini

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answered Feb 13 '12 at 18:45

kprobst

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score 2 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 12 '17 at 16:22

2

using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;     
using System.IO;

public ActionResult Thumbnail()
{
    string imageFile = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/Content/tempimg/sti1.jpg");
    var srcImage = Image.FromFile(imageFile);
    var stream = new MemoryStream();
    srcImage.Save(stream , ImageFormat.Png);
    return File(stream.ToArray(), "image/png");
}

edited Jul 12 '17 at 16:22

LatentDenis

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answered Feb 13 '12 at 18:50

Shyju

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score 1 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:33

Simply try one of these depending on your situation (copied from here):

public ActionResult Image(string id)
{
    var dir = Server.MapPath("/Images");
    var path = Path.Combine(dir, id + ".jpg");
    return base.File(path, "image/jpeg");
}


[HttpGet]
public FileResult Show(int customerId, string imageName)
{
    var path = string.Concat(ConfigData.ImagesDirectory, customerId, @"\", imageName);
    return new FileStreamResult(new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open), "image/jpeg");
}

ASP .NET MVC - Have a controller method that returns an image in the response?

5 Answers5