Export data to Excel file with ASP.NET MVC 4 C# is rendering into view

Question

I am having trouble exporting data to Excel. The following seems to render the gridview into my View, instead of prompting the user to open with Excel, which I have installed on my machine.

 Public ActionResult ExportToExcel() {                 var products = this.Repository.Products.ToList();      var grid = new GridView();     grid.DataSource = from p in products                       select new                       {                           Id = p.Id,                           Name = p.Name                       };     grid.DataBind();      Response.ClearContent();     Response.Buffer = true;     Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=MyExcelFile.xls");     Response.ContentType = "application/ms-excel";      Response.Charset = "";     StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();     HtmlTextWriter htw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);      grid.RenderControl(htw);      Response.Output.Write(sw.ToString());     Response.Flush();     Response.End();      return View("MyView");  } 

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I have tried your code and it works just fine. The file is being created without any problem, this is the code I used (it's your code, I just changed the datasource for testing):

    public ActionResult ExportToExcel()     {         var products = new System.Data.DataTable("teste");         products.Columns.Add("col1", typeof(int));         products.Columns.Add("col2", typeof(string));          products.Rows.Add(1, "product 1");         products.Rows.Add(2, "product 2");         products.Rows.Add(3, "product 3");         products.Rows.Add(4, "product 4");         products.Rows.Add(5, "product 5");         products.Rows.Add(6, "product 6");         products.Rows.Add(7, "product 7");           var grid = new GridView();         grid.DataSource = products;         grid.DataBind();          Response.ClearContent();         Response.Buffer = true;         Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=MyExcelFile.xls");         Response.ContentType = "application/ms-excel";          Response.Charset = "";         StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();         HtmlTextWriter htw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);          grid.RenderControl(htw);          Response.Output.Write(sw.ToString());         Response.Flush();         Response.End();          return View("MyView");     }