How To Render Reporting Services Reports From ASP.NET MVC

Frequently, I'll have add-on reports that we don't necessarily want to deploy to a full Reporting Services installation.  I don't need the scheduling or other features of Reporting Services and would rather just run them in-application and return the result.  To this end, I've written a "WebReportRender" class that takes an .rdlc and renders it as a PDF to the browser.  In WebForms, this meant some goo to render the Http headers to trigger a file download in the browser. I've wrapped all that nicely and it's served me well the past few years. Now,  ASP.NET MVC adds a nice FileContentResult which wraps some of this goo for you.  To reuse WebReportRender in  ASP.NET MVC, I had to add methods to just output the byte array without the Http Headers:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.IO;

using System.Linq;

using System.Net.Mail;

using System.Text;

using System.Web;

using Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms;

namespace LifeCycle.Reporting

{

    /// <summary>

    /// Assists in executing and rendering Reporting Service reports.

    /// </summary>

    public class WebReportRenderer : IDisposable

    {

        #region Private fields

        private string fullReportPath;

        private string downloadFileName;

        private LocalReport reportInstance;

        private MemoryStream reportMemoryStream;

        private string reportMimeType;

        #endregion

        #region Constructor

        /// <summary>

        /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="WebReportRenderer"/> class.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="reportPath">The report path.</param>

        /// <param name="downloadFileName">Name of the download file.</param>

        public WebReportRenderer(string reportPath, string downloadFileName)

        {

            if (HttpContext.Current == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("This class is only for use from web applications.");

            this.downloadFileName = downloadFileName;

            fullReportPath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(reportPath);

            using (System.IO.FileStream reportFile = new System.IO.FileStream(fullReportPath, System.IO.FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))

            {

                reportInstance = new LocalReport();

                reportInstance.LoadReportDefinition(reportFile);

            }

        }

        #endregion

        #region Properties

        /// <summary>

        /// Gets the report instance.

        /// </summary>

        /// <value>The report instance.</value>

        public LocalReport ReportInstance

        {

            get

            {

                return reportInstance;

            }

        }

        #endregion

        #region Public Methods

        /// <summary>

        /// Renders the current ReportInstance to the user's browser as a PDF download.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="pdfDeviceInfoSettings">The PDF device info settings (see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms154682.aspx).</param>

        /// <returns></returns>

        public Warning[] RenderToBrowserPDF(string pdfDeviceInfoSettings)

        {

            CreateStreamCallback callback = new Microsoft.Reporting.WebForms.CreateStreamCallback(CreateWebBrowserStream);

            Warning[] warnings;

            HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";

            HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + downloadFileName + "\"");

            reportInstance.Render("PDF", null, callback, out warnings);

            return warnings;

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Renders the current ReportInstance to the user's browser as a PDF download.

        /// </summary>

        /// <returns></returns>

        public Warning[] RenderToBrowserPDF()

        {

            return RenderToBrowserPDF(null);

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Renders the current ReportInstance to an email with a file attachment containing the report.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="pdfDeviceInfoSettings">The PDF device info settings (see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms154682.aspx).</param>

        /// <param name="toAddress">To address.</param>

        /// <param name="fromAddress">From address.</param>

        /// <param name="subject">The subject.</param>

        /// <param name="body">The body.</param>

        /// <returns></returns>

        public Warning[] RenderToEmailPDF(string pdfDeviceInfoSettings, string toAddress, string fromAddress, string subject, string body)

        {

            CreateStreamCallback callback = CreateMemoryStream;

            Warning[] warnings;

            reportInstance.Render("PDF", pdfDeviceInfoSettings, callback, out warnings);

            reportMemoryStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

            var client = new SmtpClient();

            using (var message = new MailMessage(fromAddress, toAddress, subject, body))

            using (var attachment = new Attachment(reportMemoryStream, reportMimeType))

            {

                attachment.Name = downloadFileName;

                message.Attachments.Add(attachment);

                client.Send(message);

            }

            return warnings;

        }

        public byte[] RenderToBytesPDF()

        {

            string mimeType;

            string encoding;

            string fileNameExtension;

            string[] streams;

            Warning[] warnings;

            return reportInstance.Render("PDF", null, out mimeType, out encoding, out fileNameExtension, out streams,

                                         out warnings);

        }

        public byte[] RenderToBytesExcel()

        {

            string mimeType;

            string encoding;

            string fileNameExtension;

            string[] streams;

            Warning[] warnings;

            return reportInstance.Render("EXCEL", null, out mimeType, out encoding, out fileNameExtension, out streams,

                                         out warnings);

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Renders the current ReportInstance to an email with a file attachment containing the report.

        /// </summary>        

        /// <param name="toAddress">To address.</param>

        /// <param name="fromAddress">From address.</param>

        /// <param name="subject">The subject.</param>

        /// <param name="body">The body.</param>

        /// <returns></returns>

        public Warning[] RenderToEmailPDF(string toAddress, string fromAddress, string subject, string body)

        {

            return RenderToEmailPDF(null, toAddress, fromAddress, subject, body);

        }

        #endregion

        #region Private Methods

        /// <summary>

        /// Formats the current response output and returns the output stream suitable for rendering to the browser as a file download.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="name">The name.</param>

        /// <param name="extension">The extension.</param>

        /// <param name="encoding">The encoding.</param>

        /// <param name="mimeType">Type of the MIME.</param>

        /// <param name="willSeek">if set to <c>true</c> [will seek].</param>

        /// <returns></returns>

        private Stream CreateWebBrowserStream(string name, string extension, System.Text.Encoding encoding, string mimeType, bool willSeek)

        {

            return HttpContext.Current.Response.OutputStream;

        }

        /// <summary>

        /// Creates a memory stream that can be used by the report when rendering to an email attachment.

        /// </summary>

        /// <param name="name">The name.</param>

        /// <param name="extension">The extension.</param>

        /// <param name="encoding">The encoding.</param>

        /// <param name="mimeType">Type of the MIME.</param>

        /// <param name="willSeek">if set to <c>true</c> [will seek].</param>

        /// <returns></returns>

        private Stream CreateMemoryStream(string name, string extension, System.Text.Encoding encoding, string mimeType, bool willSeek)

        {

            reportMemoryStream = new MemoryStream();

            reportMimeType = mimeType;

            return reportMemoryStream;

        }

        #endregion

        #region IDisposable Members

        /// <summary>

        /// Performs application-defined tasks associated with freeing, releasing, or resetting unmanaged resources.

        /// </summary>

        public void Dispose()

        {

            if (this.reportInstance != null) this.reportInstance.Dispose();

            if (this.reportMemoryStream != null) this.reportMemoryStream.Dispose();

        }

        #endregion

    }   

}

Using WebReportRenderer from ASP.NET MVC is simple:

byte[] result;

using (var renderer = new WebReportRenderer(@"~\Report.rdlc", "Report.pdf"))

{

       var adapter = new ReportTableAdapter();                

       renderer.ReportInstance.DataSources.Add(new ReportDataSource("ReportDataSet_Report", adapter.GetData()));

       ReportParameter p0 = new ReportParameter("p0", someValue);

       renderer.ReportInstance.SetParameters(new[] {p0});

       result = renderer.RenderToBytesPDF();

}

return File(result,"application/pdf", "Report.pdf");

This isn't something you'd use for high volume reports, or if you need advanced delivery or scheduling capabilities.  But for one-off reports that only a few people will ever use, it works pretty well.