Count Downloads; TransmitFile

jacob · June 8th, 2008, 07:44 AM

Hi There.

It has been a while since I have been in here, but have had some good experiences in here. Now I have a problem I do not seem to be able to solve, or rather do not know how to go about, though I tried Google.

Well, I want to count the number of times a file has been downloaded. Not just how many times some button has been clicked on the site, but one count for a succesfull download. If you use e.g. the TransmitFile method like this...

Code:

HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearContent();
HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearHeaders();
HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader(
    "Content-Disposition", "inline; filename=" + System.IO.Path.GetFileName(path));
HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/zip";
HttpContext.Current.Response.TransmitFile(path);
HttpContext.Current.Response.End();

... you will get a dialog in which you can Cancel og Save, therefore counting on the button click that started the download will not suffice since Cancel would count for one.

I once saw... or should I say... heard about the download functionality at allofmp3.com. At this site it was only possible to download some file once and it worked beautifully, even it the download was interrupted, but how?

Thanks, Jacob.

planoie · June 8th, 2008, 05:00 PM

I can only make some guesses about this. But...

I think there is a way to test some property on the Response class to see if it is still connected to the client browser (i.e. they haven't canceled the request or the connection broke, etc). If you do this test at the end of the code behind for this page or handler it might be enough to determine that the user made a completed download. Then it's just a matter of saving that information somewhere, like a database.

-Peter
compiledthoughts.com

jacob · June 9th, 2008, 05:24 AM

Hey Peter...

Nice to see that you are still in here sharing your experiences. I will explore the Response class in greater depth and post my findings.

Thanks, Jacob.