best way to write a polled FTP download in C#

Question

Hi there, I currently have a manual process where we upload a text file to a business partner, they have an automated process which reads in the file, processes it and then generates a 'results' log file any where from 3-10minutes (typically) after the initial upload. I need to automate this process via a .NET application. I already have the upload completed, what I do not have is the download of the result. Since I dont know exactly when the file will be ready to download I figure that I must need to poll the remote site every so often, get a listing of the files in the results directory and see if one matches what I am expecting.
I have done some reading and found some references to AsyncCallBack but I'm not really sure how to proceed with it. the solution has to be something I can manage without any third-party libraries outside of .net since I have a budget of 0 for this little project.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Free FTP library.

Answer 2

Just have a thread (or your main thread) sleep for x milliseconds and attempt to do the download when it's not sleeping. No need to buy a 3rd party FTP library, FTP is built into .NET (FtpWebRequest and FtpWebResponse). They aren't very good (very bare bones) but will probably do for what you want.

Answer 3

Thanks for the replies... I guess the last part of the question I have is would the process be different if this was a web-based application vs. a windows-based application?