Upload files with HTTPWebrequest (multipart/form-data)

Question

Is there any class, library or some piece of code which will help me to upload files with HTTPWebrequest?

Edit 2:

I do not want to upload to a WebDAV folder or something like that. I want to simulate a browser, so just like you upload your avatar to a forum or upload a file via form in a web application. Upload to a form which uses a multipart/form-data.

Edit:

WebClient is not cover my requirements, so I'm looking for a solution with HTTPWebrequest.

Answer 1

I think you're looking for something more like WebClient.

Specifically, UploadFile().

Answer 2

something like this is close: (untested code)

byte[] data; // data goes here.

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
request.Credentials = userNetworkCredentials;
request.Method = "PUT";
request.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
request.ContentLength = data.Length;
Stream stream = request.GetRequestStream();
stream.Write(data,0,data.Length);
stream.Close();
response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
temp = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();

Answer 3

I was looking for something like this, Found in : http://bytes.com/groups/net-c/268661-how-upload-file-via-c-code

public static  void UploadFilesToRemoteUrl(string url, string[] files, string
logpath, NameValueCollection nvc)
{

    long length = 0;
    string boundary = "----------------------------" +
    DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString("x");


    HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest2 = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
    httpWebRequest2.ContentType = "multipart/form-data; boundary=" +
    boundary;
    httpWebRequest2.Method = "POST";
    httpWebRequest2.KeepAlive = true;
    httpWebRequest2.Credentials =
    System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;



    Stream memStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream();

    byte[] boundarybytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("\r\n--" +
    boundary + "\r\n");


    string formdataTemplate = "\r\n--" + boundary +
    "\r\nContent-Disposition: form-data; name=\"{0}\";\r\n\r\n{1}";

    foreach (string key in nvc.Keys)
    {
        string formitem = string.Format(formdataTemplate, key, nvc[key]);
        byte[] formitembytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(formitem);
        memStream.Write(formitembytes, 0, formitembytes.Length);
    }


    memStream.Write(boundarybytes, 0, boundarybytes.Length);

    string headerTemplate = "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"{0}\"; filename=\"{1}\"\r\n Content-Type: application/octet-stream\r\n\r\n";

    for (int i = 0; i < files.Length; i++)
    {

        //string header = string.Format(headerTemplate, "file" + i, files[i]);
        string header = string.Format(headerTemplate, "uplTheFile", files[i]);

        byte[] headerbytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(header);

        memStream.Write(headerbytes, 0, headerbytes.Length);


        FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(files[i], FileMode.Open,
        FileAccess.Read);
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

        int bytesRead = 0;

        while ((bytesRead = fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) != 0)
        {
            memStream.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);

        }


        memStream.Write(boundarybytes, 0, boundarybytes.Length);


        fileStream.Close();
    }

    httpWebRequest2.ContentLength = memStream.Length;

    Stream requestStream = httpWebRequest2.GetRequestStream();

    memStream.Position = 0;
    byte[] tempBuffer = new byte[memStream.Length];
    memStream.Read(tempBuffer, 0, tempBuffer.Length);
    memStream.Close();
    requestStream.Write(tempBuffer, 0, tempBuffer.Length);
    requestStream.Close();


    WebResponse webResponse2 = httpWebRequest2.GetResponse();

    Stream stream2 = webResponse2.GetResponseStream();
    StreamReader reader2 = new StreamReader(stream2);


    MessageBox.Show(reader2.ReadToEnd());

    webResponse2.Close();
    httpWebRequest2 = null;
    webResponse2 = null;

Answer 4

My ASP.NET Upload FAQ has an article on this, with example code: Upload files using an RFC 1867 POST request with HttpWebRequest/WebClient. This code doesn't load files into memory (as opposed to the code above), supports multiple files, and supports form values, setting credentials and cookies, etc.

Answer 5

I had to deal with this recently - another way to approach it is to use the fact that WebClient is inheritable, and change the underlying WebRequest from there:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.webclient.getwebrequest(VS.80).aspx

I prefer C#, but if you're stuck with VB the results will look something like this:

Public Class BigWebClient
    Inherits WebClient
    Protected Overrides Function GetWebRequest(ByVal address As System.Uri) As System.Net.WebRequest
        Dim x As WebRequest = MyBase.GetWebRequest(address)
        x.Timeout = 60 * 60 * 1000
        Return x
    End Function
End Class

'Use BigWebClient here instead of WebClient

Answer 6

I realize this is probably really late, but I was searching for the same solution. I found the following response from a Microsoft rep

private void UploadFilesToRemoteUrl(string url, string[] files, string logpath, NameValueCollection nvc)
{

    long length = 0;
    string boundary = "----------------------------" +
    DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString("x");


    HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest2 = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
    httpWebRequest2.ContentType = "multipart/form-data; boundary=" +
    boundary;
    httpWebRequest2.Method = "POST";
    httpWebRequest2.KeepAlive = true;
    httpWebRequest2.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;



    Stream memStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
    byte[] boundarybytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("\r\n--" + boundary + "\r\n");


    string formdataTemplate = "\r\n--" + boundary + "\r\nContent-Disposition: form-data; name=\"{0}\";\r\n\r\n{1}";

    foreach(string key in nvc.Keys)
    {
        string formitem = string.Format(formdataTemplate, key, nvc[key]);
        byte[] formitembytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(formitem);
        memStream.Write(formitembytes, 0, formitembytes.Length);
    }


    memStream.Write(boundarybytes,0,boundarybytes.Length);

    string headerTemplate = "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"{0}\"; filename=\"{1}\"\r\n Content-Type: application/octet-stream\r\n\r\n";

    for(int i=0;i<files.Length;i++)
    {

        string header = string.Format(headerTemplate,"file"+i,files[i]);
        byte[] headerbytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(header);
        memStream.Write(headerbytes,0,headerbytes.Length);


        FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(files[i], FileMode.Open,
        FileAccess.Read);
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

        int bytesRead = 0;

        while ( (bytesRead = fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) != 0 )
        {
            memStream.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }


        memStream.Write(boundarybytes,0,boundarybytes.Length);


        fileStream.Close();
    }

    httpWebRequest2.ContentLength = memStream.Length;
    Stream requestStream = httpWebRequest2.GetRequestStream();

    memStream.Position = 0;
    byte[] tempBuffer = new byte[memStream.Length];
    memStream.Read(tempBuffer,0,tempBuffer.Length);
    memStream.Close();
    requestStream.Write(tempBuffer,0,tempBuffer.Length );
    requestStream.Close();


    WebResponse webResponse2 = httpWebRequest2.GetResponse();

    Stream stream2 = webResponse2.GetResponseStream();
    StreamReader reader2 = new StreamReader(stream2);

    webResponse2.Close();
    httpWebRequest2 = null;
    webResponse2 = null;

}

Answer 7

I can never get the examples to work properly, I always receive a 500 error when sending it to the server.

However I came across a very elegant method of doing it in this url

It is easily extendible and obviously works with binary files as well as XML.

You call it using something similar to this

class Program
{
    public static string gsaFeedURL = "http://yourGSA.domain.com:19900/xmlfeed";

    static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            postWebData();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
        }
    }

    // new one I made from C# web service
    public static void postWebData()
    {
        StringDictionary dictionary = new StringDictionary();
        UploadSpec uploadSpecs = new UploadSpec();
        UTF8Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
        byte[] bytes;
        Uri gsaURI = new Uri(gsaFeedURL);  // Create new URI to GSA feeder gate
        string sourceURL = @"C:\FeedFile.xml"; // Location of the XML feed file
        // Two parameters to send
        string feedtype = "full";
        string datasource = "test";            

        try
        {
            // Add the parameter values to the dictionary
            dictionary.Add("feedtype", feedtype);
            dictionary.Add("datasource", datasource);

            // Load the feed file created and get its bytes
            XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
            xml.Load(sourceURL);
            bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xml.OuterXml);

            // Add data to upload specs
            uploadSpecs.Contents = bytes;
            uploadSpecs.FileName = sourceURL;
            uploadSpecs.FieldName = "data";

            // Post the data
            if ((int)HttpUpload.Upload(gsaURI, dictionary, uploadSpecs).StatusCode == 200)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Successful.");
            }
            else
            {
                // GSA POST not successful
                Console.WriteLine("Failure.");
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
        }
    }
}

Answer 8

Took the code above and fixed because it throws Internal Server Error 500. There are some problems with \r\n badly positioned and spaces etc. Applied the refactoring with memory stream, writing directly to the request stream. Here is the result:

    public static void HttpUploadFile(string url, string file, string paramName, string contentType, NameValueCollection nvc) {
        log.Debug(string.Format("Uploading {0} to {1}", file, url));
        string boundary = "---------------------------" + DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString("x");
        byte[] boundarybytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("\r\n--" + boundary + "\r\n");

        HttpWebRequest wr = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
        wr.ContentType = "multipart/form-data; boundary=" + boundary;
        wr.Method = "POST";
        wr.KeepAlive = true;
        wr.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

        Stream rs = wr.GetRequestStream();

        string formdataTemplate = "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"{0}\"\r\n\r\n{1}";
        foreach (string key in nvc.Keys)
        {
            rs.Write(boundarybytes, 0, boundarybytes.Length);
            string formitem = string.Format(formdataTemplate, key, nvc[key]);
            byte[] formitembytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(formitem);
            rs.Write(formitembytes, 0, formitembytes.Length);
        }
        rs.Write(boundarybytes, 0, boundarybytes.Length);

        string headerTemplate = "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"{0}\"; filename=\"{1}\"\r\nContent-Type: {2}\r\n\r\n";
        string header = string.Format(headerTemplate, paramName, file, contentType);
        byte[] headerbytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(header);
        rs.Write(headerbytes, 0, headerbytes.Length);

        FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(file, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
        byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
        int bytesRead = 0;
        while ((bytesRead = fileStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) != 0) {
            rs.Write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
        fileStream.Close();

        byte[] trailer = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("\r\n--" + boundary + "--\r\n");
        rs.Write(trailer, 0, trailer.Length);
        rs.Close();

        WebResponse wresp = null;
        try {
            wresp = wr.GetResponse();
            Stream stream2 = wresp.GetResponseStream();
            StreamReader reader2 = new StreamReader(stream2);
            log.Debug(string.Format("File uploaded, server response is: {0}", reader2.ReadToEnd()));
        } catch(Exception ex) {
            log.Error("Error uploading file", ex);
            if(wresp != null) {
                wresp.Close();
                wresp = null;
            }
        } finally {
            wr = null;
        }
    }

and sample usage:

    NameValueCollection nvc = new NameValueCollection();
    nvc.Add("id", "TTR");
    nvc.Add("btn-submit-photo", "Upload");
    HttpUploadFile("http://your.server.com/upload", 
         @"C:\test\test.jpg", "file", "image/jpeg", nvc);

It could be extended to handle multiple files or just call it multiple times for each file. However it suits your needs.