Download file from Button link to specific folder on C drive

Question

I am scraping the web page and navigating to correct location, however as being a new to the whole c# world I am stuck with downloading pdf file.

Link is hiding behind this

var reportDownloadButton = driver.FindElementById("company_report_link");

It is something like: www.link.com/key/489498-654gjgh6-6g5h4jh/link.pdf

How to download the file to C:\temp\?

Here is my code:

using System.Linq;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;

namespace WebDriverTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            var chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
            chromeOptions.AddArguments("headless");

            // Initialize the Chrome Driver // chromeOptions
            using (var driver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions))
            {
                // Go to the home page
                driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("www.link.com");
                driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);
                // Get the page elements
                var userNameField = driver.FindElementById("loginForm:username");
                var userPasswordField = driver.FindElementById("loginForm:password");
                var loginButton = driver.FindElementById("loginForm:loginButton");

                // Type user name and password
                userNameField.SendKeys("username");
                userPasswordField.SendKeys("password");

                // and click the login button
                loginButton.Click();

                driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("www.link2.com");
                driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);

                var reportSearchField = driver.FindElementByClassName("form-control");

                reportSearchField.SendKeys("Company");

                var reportSearchButton = driver.FindElementById("search_filter_button");
                reportSearchButton.Click();

                var reportDownloadButton = driver.FindElementById("company_report_link");
                reportDownloadButton.Click();

---

EDIT:

---

EDIT 2:

I am not the sharpest pen on Stackoverflow community yet. I don't understand how to do it with Selenium. I have done it with

        var reportDownloadButton = driver.FindElementById("company_report_link");
        var text = reportDownloadButton.GetAttribute("href");
        // driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);

        WebClient client = new WebClient();
        // Save the file to desktop for debugging
        var desktop = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
        string fileName = desktop + "\\myfile.pdf";
        client.DownloadFile(text, fileName);

However web page seems to be a little bit tricky. I am getting

System.Net.WebException: 'The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.'

Debugger pointing at:

client.DownloadFile(text, fileName);

I think it should really simulate Right click and Save Link As, otherwise this download will not work. Also if I just click on button, it opens PDF in new Chrome tab.

---

EDIT3:

Should it be like this?

using System.Linq;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;

namespace WebDriverTest
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

    // declare chrome options with prefs
    var options = new ChromeOptionsWithPrefs();
    options.AddArguments("headless"); // we add headless here

    // declare prefs
        options.prefs = new Dictionary<string, object>
        {
            { "download.default_directory", downloadFilePath }
        };

    // declare driver with these options
    //driver = new ChromeDriver(options); we don't need this because we already declare driver below.

            // Initialize the Chrome Driver // chromeOptions
            using (var driver = new ChromeDriver(options))
            {
                // Go to the home page
                driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("www.link.com");
                driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);
                // Get the page elements
                var userNameField = driver.FindElementById("loginForm:username");
                var userPasswordField = driver.FindElementById("loginForm:password");
                var loginButton = driver.FindElementById("loginForm:loginButton");

                // Type user name and password
                userNameField.SendKeys("username");
                userPasswordField.SendKeys("password");

                // and click the login button
                loginButton.Click();

                driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("www.link.com");
                driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);

                var reportSearchField = driver.FindElementByClassName("form-control");

                reportSearchField.SendKeys("company");

                var reportSearchButton = driver.FindElementById("search_filter_button");
                reportSearchButton.Click();

                driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = System.TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);
                driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("www.link.com");

                // click the link to download
                var reportDownloadButton = driver.FindElementById("company_report_link");
                reportDownloadButton.Click();

                // if clicking does not work, get href attribute and call GoToUrl() -- this may trigger download
                var href = reportDownloadButton.GetAttribute("href");
                driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(href);

                }
            }
        }

    }
}

Answer 1

You can use WebClient.DownloadFile for that.

Answer 2

You could try setting the download.default_directory Chrome driver preference:

// declare chrome options with prefs
var options = new ChromeOptionsWithPrefs();

// declare prefs
    options.prefs = new Dictionary<string, object>
    {
        { "download.default_directory", downloadFilePath }
    };

// declare driver with these options
driver = new ChromeDriver(options);


// ... run your code here ...

// click the link to download
var reportDownloadButton = driver.FindElementById("company_report_link");
reportDownloadButton.Click();

// if clicking does not work, get href attribute and call GoToUrl() -- this may trigger download
var href = reportDownloadButton.GetAttribute("href");
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(href);

If reportDownloadButton is a link that triggers a download, then the file should download to the filePath you have set in download.default_directory .

Neither of these threads are in C#, but they speak of a similar issue:

How to control the download of files with Selenium + Python bindings in Chrome

How to use chrome webdriver in selenium to download files in python?