C# Upload whole directory using FTP

cdirectoryftprecursionupload

What I'm trying to do is to upload a website using FTP in C# (C Sharp). So I need to upload all files and folders within a folder, keeping its structure. I'm using this FTP class: http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/443588/Simple-Csharp-FTP-Class for the actual uploading.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to write a recursive method that goes through every sub-directory of the main directory and upload all files and folders in it. This should make an exact copy of my folder to the FTP. Problem is… I have no clue how to write a method like that. I have written recursive methods before but I'm new to the FTP part.

This is what I have so far:

private void recursiveDirectory(string directoryPath)
    {
        string[] filePaths = null;
        string[] subDirectories = null;

        filePaths = Directory.GetFiles(directoryPath, "*.*");
        subDirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(directoryPath);

        if (filePaths != null && subDirectories != null)
        {
            foreach (string directory in subDirectories)
            {
                ftpClient.createDirectory(directory);
            }
            foreach (string file in filePaths)
            {
                ftpClient.upload(Path.GetDirectoryName(directoryPath), file);
            }
        }
    }

But its far from done and I don't know how to continue. I'm sure more than me needs to know this! Thanks in advance 🙂

Ohh and… It would be nice if it reported its progress too 🙂 (I'm using a progress bar)

EDIT:
It might have been unclear… How do I upload a directory including all sub-directories and files with FTP?

Best Answer

Problem Solved! :)

Alright so I managed to write the method myslef. If anyone need it feel free to copy:

private void recursiveDirectory(string dirPath, string uploadPath)
    {
        string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(dirPath, "*.*");
        string[] subDirs = Directory.GetDirectories(dirPath);

        foreach (string file in files)
        {
            ftpClient.upload(uploadPath + "/" + Path.GetFileName(file), file);
        }

        foreach (string subDir in subDirs)
        {
            ftpClient.createDirectory(uploadPath + "/" + Path.GetFileName(subDir));
            recursiveDirectory(subDir, uploadPath + "/" + Path.GetFileName(subDir));
        }
    }

It works very well :)

Related Solutions

Bash – How to get the source directory of a Bash script from within the script itself

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SCRIPT_DIR="$( cd -- "$( dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" &> /dev/null && pwd )"

is a useful one-liner which will give you the full directory name of the script no matter where it is being called from.

It will work as long as the last component of the path used to find the script is not a symlink (directory links are OK). If you also want to resolve any links to the script itself, you need a multi-line solution:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SOURCE="${BASH_SOURCE[0]}"
while [ -h "$SOURCE" ]; do # resolve $SOURCE until the file is no longer a symlink
  DIR="$( cd -P "$( dirname "$SOURCE" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd )"
  SOURCE="$(readlink "$SOURCE")"
  [[ $SOURCE != /* ]] && SOURCE="$DIR/$SOURCE" # if $SOURCE was a relative symlink, we need to resolve it relative to the path where the symlink file was located
done
DIR="$( cd -P "$( dirname "$SOURCE" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd )"

This last one will work with any combination of aliases, source, bash -c, symlinks, etc.

Beware: if you cd to a different directory before running this snippet, the result may be incorrect!

Also, watch out for $CDPATH gotchas, and stderr output side effects if the user has smartly overridden cd to redirect output to stderr instead (including escape sequences, such as when calling update_terminal_cwd >&2 on Mac). Adding >/dev/null 2>&1 at the end of your cd command will take care of both possibilities.

To understand how it works, try running this more verbose form:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SOURCE="${BASH_SOURCE[0]}"
while [ -h "$SOURCE" ]; do # resolve $SOURCE until the file is no longer a symlink
  TARGET="$(readlink "$SOURCE")"
  if [[ $TARGET == /* ]]; then
    echo "SOURCE '$SOURCE' is an absolute symlink to '$TARGET'"
    SOURCE="$TARGET"
  else
    DIR="$( dirname "$SOURCE" )"
    echo "SOURCE '$SOURCE' is a relative symlink to '$TARGET' (relative to '$DIR')"
    SOURCE="$DIR/$TARGET" # if $SOURCE was a relative symlink, we need to resolve it relative to the path where the symlink file was located
  fi
done
echo "SOURCE is '$SOURCE'"
RDIR="$( dirname "$SOURCE" )"
DIR="$( cd -P "$( dirname "$SOURCE" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && pwd )"
if [ "$DIR" != "$RDIR" ]; then
  echo "DIR '$RDIR' resolves to '$DIR'"
fi
echo "DIR is '$DIR'"

And it will print something like:

SOURCE './scriptdir.sh' is a relative symlink to 'sym2/scriptdir.sh' (relative to '.')
SOURCE is './sym2/scriptdir.sh'
DIR './sym2' resolves to '/home/ubuntu/dotfiles/fo fo/real/real1/real2'
DIR is '/home/ubuntu/dotfiles/fo fo/real/real1/real2'

Git – How to add a blank directory to a Git repository

Another way to make a directory stay (almost) empty (in the repository) is to create a .gitignore file inside that directory that contains these four lines:

# Ignore everything in this directory
*
# Except this file
!.gitignore

Then you don't have to get the order right the way that you have to do in m104's solution.

This also gives the benefit that files in that directory won't show up as "untracked" when you do a git status.

Making @GreenAsJade's comment persistent:

I think it's worth noting that this solution does precisely what the question asked for, but is not perhaps what many people looking at this question will have been looking for. This solution guarantees that the directory remains empty. It says "I truly never want files checked in here". As opposed to "I don't have any files to check in here, yet, but I need the directory here, files may be coming later".

Best Answer

Problem Solved! :)

Related Solutions

Bash – How to get the source directory of a Bash script from within the script itself

Git – How to add a blank directory to a Git repository

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