RedirectToAction / save form and print PDF from on button

Question

my application is MVC3 (ASPX views). I have a form, in the Edit view I have save button, that saves the form and return to the index page, and another button to print PDF from another ActionResult in the same controller as Edit; it there a way to save and print the PDF from one button? Here is my script for edit view:

 public ActionResult EditCTAH(long learnerID = 0, long caseListID = 0)
    {

        ViewBag.caseListID = (long)Session["_CTA_CaseListId"];
        try
        {
            CTAHFormEdit ctform = _learnerscaseListsSvc.GetCTAHForm(learnerID, caseListID);
            return View(ctform);
        }
        catch
        {
            return null;
        }
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult EditCATH(CTAHFormEdit ctform)
    {
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            _learnerscaseListsSvc.EditCTAHForm(ctform);
            long courseId = (long)Session["_CTA_CourseId"];
            long caseId = (long)Session["_CTA_CaseId"];
            long caselistId = (long)Session["_CTA_CaseListId"];
            return RedirectToAction("Index", new { courseId = courseId, caseId = caseId, caselistId = caselistId });
        }

        return View(ctform);
    }

and here is the script for printing the PDF:

   public ActionResult EvaluationCATH_PDF(long learnerID = 0, long caseListID = 0)
        {
            try
            {
.....
    pdfStamper.Close();
                byte[] byteInfo = workStream.ToArray();
                SendPdfToBrowser(byteInfo, cth.Learner_ID, cth.StudyCase_ID);
                return null;
            }
            catch
            {
                return null;
            }
        }

Thanks in advance.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 18 '12 at 19:57

If you want to get the PDF on the Save of your edit action, you may redirect to an action method which returns the PDF to browser

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult EditCATH(CTAHFormEdit ctform)
{
    if (ModelState.IsValid)
    {
     //Saved succesfully, lets show the pdf in browser.
      return RedirectToAction("Print",new { id=someIdValue});
    }
    return View(ctform);
}
public ActionResult Print(string id)
{
   byte[] pdfByteArray=GetByteArrayFromPassedID(id);
   return File(pdfByteArray,"application/pdf","somefriendlyname.pdf");
}

Thanks Shyju, I generate the PDF from the model after saving it; the pdf file does not exist. You solution would work well if the pdf is already there. — hncl, Sep 18 '12 at 20:24

RedirectToAction / save form and print PDF from on button

1 Answers1