What's the difference between the four File Results in ASP.NET MVC

Question

ASP.NET has four different types of file results:

• FileContentResult: Sends the contents of a binary file to the response.
• FilePathResult: Sends the contents of a file to the response
• FileResult: Returns binary output to write to the response
• FileStreamResult: Sends binary content to the response by using a Stream instance

Those descriptions are take from MSDN and with the exception of the FileStreamResult the first three sound identical. So what is the difference between them?

Answer 1

FileResult is an abstract base class for all the others.

• FileContentResult - you use it when you have a byte array you would like to return as a file
• FilePathResult - when you have a file on disk and would like to return its content (you give a path)
• FileStreamResult - you have a stream open, you want to return its content as a file

However, you'll rarely have to use these classes - you can just use one of Controller.File overloads and let ASP.NET MVC do the magic for you.