ASP .Net Web API downloading images as binary

Question

I want to try to use Web API make a rest call but I want the response to be the actual binary image stored in a database, not a JSON base64 encoded string. Anyone got some pointers on this?

Update- This is what I ended up implementing:

 HttpResponseMessage result = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK);
 result.Content = new StreamContent(new MemoryStream(profile.Avatar));
 result.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/octet-stream");
 result.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition = new ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment");
 result.Content.Headers.ContentDisposition.FileName = "avatar.png";
 return result;

Answer 1

While this has been marked as answered, it wasn't quite what I wanted, so I kept looking. Now that I've figured it out, here's what I've got:

public FileContentResult GetFile(string id)
{
    byte[] fileContents;
    using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        using (Bitmap image = new Bitmap(WebRequest.Create(myURL).GetResponse().GetResponseStream()))
            image.Save(memoryStream, ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        fileContents = memoryStream.ToArray();
    }
    return new FileContentResult(fileContents, "image/jpg");
}

Granted, that's for getting an image through a URL. If you just want to grab an image off the file server, I'd imagine you replace this line:

using (Bitmap image = new Bitmap(WebRequest.Create(myURL).GetResponse().GetResponseStream()))

With this:

using (Bitmap image = new Bitmap(myFilePath))

EDIT: Never mind, this is for regular MVC. for Web API, I have this:

public HttpResponseMessage Get(string id)
{
    string fileName = string.Format("{0}.jpg", id);
    if (!FileProvider.Exists(fileName))
        throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound);

    FileStream fileStream = FileProvider.Open(fileName);
    HttpResponseMessage response = new HttpResponseMessage { Content = new StreamContent(fileStream) };
    response.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("image/jpg");
    response.Content.Headers.ContentLength = FileProvider.GetLength(fileName);
    return response;
}

Which is quite similar to what OP has.

Answer 2

You can set the response content to a StreamContent object:

        var fileStream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open);

        var resp = new HttpResponseMessage()
        {
            Content = new StreamContent(fileStream)
        };

        // Find the MIME type
        string mimeType = _extensions[Path.GetExtension(path)];
        resp.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue(mimeType);

Answer 3

I did this exact thing. Here is my code:

if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(imageName))
                {
                    var savedFileName = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, Path.Combine(uploadPath, imageName));
                    var image = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(savedFileName);

                    if (ImageFormat.Jpeg.Equals(image.RawFormat))
                    {
                        // JPEG
                        using(var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
                        {
                            image.Save(memoryStream, ImageFormat.Jpeg);

                            var result = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK)
                                {
                                    Content = new ByteArrayContent(memoryStream.ToArray())
                                };

                            result.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("image/jpeg");
                            result.Content.Headers.ContentLength = memoryStream.Length;

                            return result;
                        }
                    }
                    else if (ImageFormat.Png.Equals(image.RawFormat))
                    {
                        // PNG
                        using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
                        {
                            image.Save(memoryStream, ImageFormat.Png);

                            var result = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK)
                            {
                                Content = new ByteArrayContent(memoryStream.ToArray())
                            };

                            result.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("image/png");
                            result.Content.Headers.ContentLength = memoryStream.Length;

                            return result;
                        }
                    }
                    else if (ImageFormat.Gif.Equals(image.RawFormat))
                    {
                        // GIF
                        using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
                        {
                            image.Save(memoryStream, ImageFormat.Gif);

                            var result = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK)
                            {
                                Content = new ByteArrayContent(memoryStream.ToArray())
                            };

                            result.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("image/gif");
                            result.Content.Headers.ContentLength = memoryStream.Length;

                            return result;
                        }
                    }
                }

And then on the client:

                    var client = new HttpClient();
                    var imageName = product.ImageUrl.Replace("~/Uploads/", "");
                var path = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory,
                                        Properties.Settings.Default.DeviceMediaPath + "\\" + imageName);

                var response =
                    client.GetAsync(apiUrl + "/Image?apiLoginId=" + apiLoginId + "&authorizationToken=" + authToken +
                                    "&imageName=" + product.ImageUrl.Replace("~/Uploads/","")).Result;

                if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
                {
                    var data = response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync().Result;
                    using (var ms = new MemoryStream(data))
                    {
                        using (var fs = File.Create(path))
                        {
                            ms.CopyTo(fs);
                        }
                    }

                    result = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    result = false;
                    break;
                }