[SOLVED] Using Blazor for generating static serverless website (without .NET server and without .NET client)

Using Blazor for generating static serverless website (without .NET server and without .NET client)

Short question: I try to store the HTML output of a Blazor to a file in order to have a static website, but I don't find the file. What am I missing?

Long question Some time ago I asked a question about generating a static serverless website with Blazor. (Use Blazor for generating static serverless website (without .NET server)) At that time, I was still wondering whether to use Blazor WASM or some generator for a pure HTML page. Now that I'm finishing my website, I'm sure I want pure HTML. I think the Blazor library takes too long to load and doesn't scroll nicely.

I've been trying to implement this in the ./Program.cs file. I've come across this blog which does a similar thing:(Andrew Lock - .NET Escapades: Rendering Blazor components to a string) Only I want don't want to serve the HTML immediatly. I want to store it as a file. That part doesn't work. I run the Program.cs. I see HTML is generated. I store it to a file. File.Exists(path) returns true. I can't find it. Even Blazor doesn't find it the next time I run it. What am I missing?

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.Hosting;
using Be.M.Dev.TestProject;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web.HtmlRendering;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components;
using Be.M.Dev.TestProject.Core;
using System.IO;


var builder = WebAssemblyHostBuilder.CreateDefault(args);
builder.RootComponents.Add<App>("#app");
builder.RootComponents.Add<HeadOutlet>("head::after");

builder.Services.AddScoped(sp => new HttpClient { BaseAddress = new Uri(builder.HostEnvironment.BaseAddress) });
builder.Services.AddScoped<HtmlRenderer>();

var app = builder.Build();

var htmlRenderer = app.Services.GetRequiredService<HtmlRenderer>();

await htmlRenderer.Dispatcher.InvokeAsync(async () =>
{
    var output = await htmlRenderer.RenderComponentAsync<Be.M.Dev.TestProject.Components.HomeComponent>(ParameterView.Empty);
    var html = output.ToHtmlString();

    var path = Path.GetFullPath("index.html");
    Console.WriteLine(File.Exists(path)); // OUTPUT false, even after rerunning
    await File.WriteAllTextAsync(path, html);
    Console.WriteLine(File.Exists(path)); // OUTPUT true, but I can't find it
});

Solution

var builder = WebAssemblyHostBuilder.CreateDefault(args);
...
  
   await File.WriteAllTextAsync(path, html);

When you write a file in Blazor WebAssembly then it is written to memfs, an in-memory filesystem. It is not persisted.

You can try to put your page and the HtmlRenderer code in a Serverside app so that you can write to your local drives.