Returning a stream from File.OpenRead()

Question

I'm in the process of writing a WCF service that will allow an ASP.Net web site to retrieve files (based on this article). My problem is that when I return the stream, it's blank.

For simplicity, I've isolated the code into a simple winforms app to try and find what the problem is with returning a stream and this is the code:

    private Stream TestStream()     {         Stream fs = File.OpenRead(@"c:\testdocument.docx");         return fs;     }      // This method converts the filestream into a byte array so that when it is      // used in my ASP.Net project the file can be sent using response.Write     private void Test()     {                     System.IO.MemoryStream data = new System.IO.MemoryStream();         System.IO.Stream str = TestStream();          str.CopyTo(data);         byte[] buf = new byte[data.Length];         data.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);                            } 

The result of this code is that buf is 12,587 bytes long (the correct length of the file) but it just contains 0's.

The Word document opens without problems if I try it, am I missing something obvious?

Answer 1

You forgot to seek:

str.CopyTo(data); data.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); // <-- missing line byte[] buf = new byte[data.Length]; data.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);