This post will have a limited audience (even more limited than my normal posts!), but if you’re searching for a solution to this particular problem, I hope you’ll be glad you found this.

I was recently tasked with uploading a file to an FTP server. I optimistically estimated that it shouldn’t take long as we’re using .NET 2.0 and there’s FTP stuff in 2.0.

But, the particular server I had to write to took parameters on the PUT command (something I’d never seen before). The put looked something like this:
PUT thefile.txt %destinationFilename.txt%param2%%param4

The parameters tell the server things like what ‘mailbox’ to use, what account to use to write the file, etc. etc.

A quick bit of info on FTP: you first send the PUT request, and get a response, followed by other requests (for things like credentials), followed ultimately by sending a STOR command.

The .NET 2.0 implementation of FtpWebRequest does not take into account differences between the ‘request (PUT)’ parameters and the ‘command (STOR) parameters’.

To get around this, one must use sockets directly. I found a Microsoft KB article that contained just that. The sample demonstrated using pluggable protocol handlers. I removed the bits that weren’t relevant and modified it to handle command parameters.

I fronted all this with an FtpTransfer class that deals with just uploading files. Typical usage looks like this:

FtpTransfer ftpTransfer = new FtpTransfer( 
    new Uri( @"ftp://serverRequiringParameters" ), 
    @"yourUsername", 
    @"yourPassword" );

ftpTransfer.UploadFileWithParameters( 
    @"c:tempftptest.txt", 
    @"destinationFilename.txt", 
    @"%destinationFilename.txt%PARAM2%PARAM3" );

The source (and a Visual Studio 2005 project) can be download here.

🙏🙏🙏

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Published 09 May 2007