FileStreamResult Error Handling

Question

ASP.Net MVC 3

I have an Action that returns a FileStreamResult after it imports a PDF document and stamps it with a watermark. Since it is possible to have a file not found error, how do I return a view instead of a filestream?

To complicate things I am using Philip Hutchison's jQuery PDFObject (http://pdfobject.com) to call the action and render it in a DIV so I cannot redirect on the server side.

To reiterate: It's a jQuery link on the page that fills a DIV with the results from a PDF filestream. The only 'hack' thing that I can think of is to send an Error.pdf file.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

I ended up creating an error PDF memory stream.

MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
try
    {
        PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(readerURL);
        StampWatermark(WO, ms, reader);
    }

catch (Exception ex)
    {
        RenderErrorPDF(WO, ms, ex);
    }

byte[] byteinfo = ms.ToArray();
ms.Write(byteinfo, 0, byteinfo.Length);
ms.Position = 0;
ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
return new FileStreamResult(ms, "application/pdf");

RenderErrorPDF method

private static void RenderErrorPDF(WorkOrder WO, MemoryStream ms, Exception ex)
    {
        BaseFont bfTimes = BaseFont.CreateFont(BaseFont.HELVETICA_BOLD, BaseFont.CP1250, false);
        var doc = new Document(new Rectangle(792f, 540f));
        var wr = PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, ms);
        doc.Open();
        doc.Add(new Paragraph("There was an error rendering the file that you requested...", new Font(bfTimes, 24f)));
        doc.Add(new Paragraph(string.Format("\r\rFile: {0}", WO.DRAWING_FILE)));

        doc.Add(new Paragraph(string.Format("\r\rError: {0}", ex.Message)));
        wr.CloseStream = false;
        doc.Close();
    }