Calling Response.TransmitFile() from static method

Question

I have a number of pages which need to support exporting data to an Excel spreadsheet. I can generate the Excel files just fine, but I'm trying to work out how to abstract this behavior so it's easily reusable from all of the pages where I need it. My current idea is to use a static utility method, as follows:

public static void SendExcelFile(System.Web.UI.Page callingPage, string downloadFileName, List<List<string>> data, string worksheetTitle)
{
    string tempFileName = Path.GetTempFileName();

    try
    {
        // Generate file using ExcelPackage
        GenerateExcelDoc(tempFileName, data, worksheetTitle);

        callingPage.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment;filename=" + downloadFileName);
        callingPage.Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet";
        callingPage.Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", new FileInfo(tempFileName).Length.ToString());
        callingPage.Response.TransmitFile(tempFileName);
    }
    finally
    {
        //When this is removed, the method works as expected.
        if (File.Exists(tempFileName))
            File.Delete(tempFileName);  
    }
}

The click handler where I'm calling SendExcelFile looks like this:

protected void lnkExport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    List<List<string>> dataList = GatherDataForSpreadsheet();
    Utility.SendExcelFile(this, "fileNameForDownload.xlsx", dataList, "MyReports");
}

This code works just fine as an instance method of the calling page. As a static method, though, it doesn't work at all. When I click the button that invokes this, the browser shows the loading animations indefinitely, but never prompts for a file download.

I'm very new to ASP.NET (and web programming in general), so I'm sure I'm missing something here. Could someone please explain the behavior I'm seeing, and suggest a reasonable alternative to this approach?

EDIT: If I remove the call to File.Delete() at the end, the method works as expected. Does Response.TransmitFile() do the transfer asynchronously?

EDIT 2: I just needed to call Response.Flush() before I deleted the file. See my answer below. Thanks!

Answer 1

The problem was that the temp file was being deleted before the data was sent down. I just needed to call Response.Flush() like so:

public static void SendExcelFile(System.Web.UI.Page callingPage, string downloadFileName, List<List<string>> data, string worksheetTitle)
{
    string tempFileName = Path.GetTempFileName();

    try
    {
        // Generate file using ExcelPackage
        GenerateExcelDoc(tempFileName, data, worksheetTitle);

        callingPage.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment;filename=" + downloadFileName);
        callingPage.Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet";
        callingPage.Response.AddHeader("Content-Length", new FileInfo(tempFileName).Length.ToString());
        callingPage.Response.TransmitFile(tempFileName);
        callingPage.Response.Flush();  //This is what I needed
    }
    finally
    {
        if (File.Exists(tempFileName))
            File.Delete(tempFileName);  
    }
}