Practical Approach of Downloading File From FTP Path

Steps to download a file from a FTP:

• Create a FTP web request.
• Create an output File stream to select the destination of the file to store.
• Get the response from the request.
• Write the reponses to the output file stream.
• Now the file is downloaded from the FTP path and placed in the specified path.

Used Namespaces:

using System.Net;
using System.IO;

Step 1: Usage:

FTPDownload("C:\\", "default.aspx", "ftp://208.43.121.51/", "UserName", "Password");

Creating NetworkCredential means passing the username and password of the FTP path:

/// <summary>

/// NetworkCredential just to set the User and password of ftp path.

/// </summary>

public static NetworkCredential CreateNetworkCredentials(string ftpUserID, string ftpPassword)

{

return new NetworkCredential(ftpUserID, ftpPassword);

}

Step 2: Creating a FTP web Request.

/// <summary>

///Creates the FTP web request

/// </summary>

public static FtpWebRequest CreateFTPRequest(string fullFtpPath, string fileName)

{

return (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(new Uri(fullFtpPath + "/" + fileName));

}

Step 3: Download a file from a FTP path and store in a local folder.

//Helps to download file from FTP and save it to local folder.

public static void FTPDownload(string path, string fileName, string fullFtpPath,

string ftpUserID, string ftpPassword)

{

FileStream outputStream;

//Now the FTP web request completed and ready for response.

FtpWebRequest ftpWebRequest = GetDownloadFTPWebRequest(path, fileName, fullFtpPath, ftpUserID, ftpPassword, out outputStream);

//Getting response from the request.

FtpWebResponse response = (FtpWebResponse)ftpWebRequest.GetResponse();

PassFileStreamDataToStream(response, outputStream);

}

Step 4: Setting the web request and returning it.

//Download

public static FtpWebRequest GetDownloadFTPWebRequest(string path, string fileName, string fullFtpPath,

string ftpUserID, string ftpPassword, out FileStream fs)

{

//Creates file stream based on the passed path.

fs = new FileStream(path + "\\" + fileName, FileMode.Create);

//Creating FTP request.

FtpWebRequest reqFTP = CreateFTPRequest(fullFtpPath, fileName);

//Setting FTP Credentials.

reqFTP.Credentials = CreateNetworkCredentials(ftpUserID, ftpPassword);

reqFTP.KeepAlive = false;

// What mechanism you need to perform like download,upload etc in the FTP path.

reqFTP.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;

// Specify the data transfer type.

reqFTP.UseBinary = true;

// Notify the server about the size of the uploaded file

reqFTP.ContentLength = fs.Length;

return reqFTP;

}

Step 5: Writes the FTP response to file stream which creates a file in the specified path.

/// <summary>

/// It takes the stream as bytes from response and writes the bytes to the file stream as File.

/// </summary>

public static void PassFileStreamDataToStream(FtpWebResponse response, FileStream outputStream)

{

try

{

Stream ftpStream = response.GetResponseStream();

int bufferSize = 2048;

int readCount;

byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize];

//reads the stream of response based on request.

readCount = ftpStream.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize);

//Writing Stream to the Path specified in the File stream.

while (readCount > 0)

{

outputStream.Write(buffer, 0, readCount);

readCount = ftpStream.Read(buffer, 0, bufferSize);

}

ftpStream.Close();

outputStream.Close();

response.Close();

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

GetHttpResponse().Write(ex.Message + " Download Error");

}

}

Step 6: Creating the response to write if an error occurs.

/// <summary>

/// Get current response.

/// </summary>

public static HttpResponse GetHttpResponse()

{

return HttpContext.Current.Response;

}