Download data

[MS]

We have to provide a facility on the client machines to download the data

visible on a ASP page into an excel sheet. We are using WIN2k clients

connected to WIN2k server with IE6.0 installed.

The way we plan to implement it is that :

a) provide a right click and download to excel button from the ASP page

visible in IE.

b) on click of download make a server call passing the appropriate command

to send back the data in excel format.

My questions are :

Q1) Is there anyway to avoid the server call? I am not looking for OCX

either?

Q2) Are there any issues to do with memory leaks / deadlocks in case we use

such office automation to generate a report in excel? Is there a way around?

 

[Aaron [SQL Server MVP]]

Q1) Is there anyway to avoid the server call?

If the data lives on your server, I don't know how else they would request
it without making a call to your server.

Have you considered offering the file in .csv, prompting them to download
it, then they can simply open it with Excel?

 

[B0nj]

Create the file server-side, then enable a link that points to the
file location on the server. They will then get the option when they
click on that link to save the file to disk. In some cases I have
seen Excel workbooks actually opening up in I.E., but I personally
abhor that, and (thankfully) I think you've got to jump through
hoops to enable it rather than prevent it - i.e. it's not the default
behaviour, normally the user should automatically get a dialog
box with the option to save to disk the Excel file.
Note that any macros you put in the sheet will be at the discretion
of the user's Excel security settings, which may or may not be on
'medium' (causing a prompt) or 'high' (causing disablement of code).