Call MVC file download action method from jQuery

Question

If I have the following MVC Action:

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult GetDocument(int id, string fileName)
{
    // ..... // 
    return File(fileStream, "text/plain", fileName);
}

I want to call the action on a click of a table row using jQuery. But I'm a bit confused, because I don't think I want an Ajax call here do I?

Answer 1

You don't want to do this with Ajax, as the response will be provided through the XmlHttpRequest, which is essentially useless at this point. You will need to do a standard post.

What you will likely need to do, is, if you need it to be a post, wrap up a form:

<form action="{mvc-route-here}" method="post"><input type="submit" value="Submit" /></form>

Or change it from a POST to a GET and use a standard hyperlink:

<a href="{mvc-route-here}">Submit</a>

...etc