Upload any type of File through a C# Web Service

Scott Lysle

7y864.3k33100Article

33 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

shahab zaheer5y ago
Lots of thanks... very useful code .. .and working successfully .... thanks again...
Mark Sze6y ago
Thanks, very useful and well written. Only note would be write permission required for IIS user to the TransientStorage folder (or whatever folder you want to save the file to)
pillino mallino7y ago
Very useful, clear and completely functional, thank you so much Scott
Palak Panchal8y ago
How can i uload a file to webserver which is coming from android as multipart data?
yusra mansoor10y ago
How can we upload from android to this service?
- Palak Panchal8y ago
  Please let me know if you know.
Ashok Keshri11y ago
how uplaod csv file with handler in asp.net jquery
mehdi dehghani12y ago
Thank you for great practice, but I get this error.-----> File Upload Status: Access to the path 'd:\HostingSpaces\online.com\test.online.com\wwwroot\TransientStorage\piaf.gif' is denied.
David Kittell13y ago
Scott, this is a great article and source. Thank you for providing this resource
edge jiskra14y ago
Hi Scott - Great article and very useful. Exactly what I was looking for to upload PDF files from an XBAP application. Thank You!
ryancsharpcorner14y ago
Great example! Very clean and precise. Thank you for putting this together!
srini dude16y ago
donload is not working....
Michael Ort17y agoedited
I am new to the .NET. It's a very useful application. But is there a way to have on the WEB server itself an event handler OnFileUploaded, where I could process the uploaded data files? <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p> Thank you in advance, Best Regards, Mihael
Molivia sa17y ago
Dear Scott, I was wondering is there any idea how to add more parameters in the upload file, Yes I am able to do that but the problems is, the parameters getting is from the win forms application and I seem unable to edit the window form, everytime I add textboxes it just display the same one as original. can you please help me how to chang it please thank you
overule goody17y ago
Hi Scott, I encountered a proxy authentication error. How should i solve this ? Need this asap. Thanks
kishore krishna17y ago
what windows doing for upload interface. same thing is possible in web service. if it is possible give me small example
kadambari baalu17y ago
This article is good to read and Practice..
omid jalali17y ago
aa
Vin17y ago
What if there are multiple files being uploaded? Do I have to pass a byte array for each file? Thanks.
- Scott Lysle17y ago
  I generally zip them up and send them as a single file using SharpZipLib. Take a look at ICSharpCode http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SharpZipLib/
Gnanavel17y ago
Hi, While calling the Uploader from the Client PC, It says UPLOAD ERROR. NOT IMPLEMENTED 501. Can you let me know how to overcome this error. But It is running fine if I use the Same PC for Client and Server. regards, VEL
- Gnanavel17y ago
  I am using IIS 5.1 in Windows XP PRO. I am trying to upload a compressed file which will be with .Z extension and the size around 1MB. Do I need to modify anything in the Web Server settings.
- Gnanavel17y ago
  Hi, Thanks for ur comments. Actually I am using an Client.exe file in the client Pc which will use thsi UploadFile web service and upload the file to the server. In this case it is getting the HTTP status not implemented. Upload Error. I tried all the possiblities. It will be very helpfull if there is any alternative to overcome this issue. thanks.
- Scott Lysle17y ago
  Take a look at this article by Mahesh Chand: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/mahesh/Error50109132008223555PM/Error501.aspx
Sai Giridhar18y ago
Hi Scott, I have developed the service using WCF. The upload method is marked as [OperationContract]. But when I invoke the method using a windows consumer it throws "Bad Request". Here is my trace. 08:12:02 3549 Creating the proxy to service... 08:12:02 7612 Getting the file information... 08:12:02 7612 Name of the file: Baby laugh.mp3 08:12:02 7612 Size of the file: 240745 08:12:02 7612 Opening the file... 08:12:02 7612 Size of the binary array: 240745 08:12:02 7612 Starting the upload... 08:12:03 0424 EXCEPTION: The remote server returned an unexpected response: (400) Bad Request. Can you help?
- Sai Giridhar18y ago
  Hi Scott, I was able to solve the problem by getting the solution from http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wcf/thread/38d09aca-acd3-4eb8-a5d3-803a68de92d9/
pawan bansal19y agoedited
First of all Thank you very much for submitting such a great example for uploading files without any user intervention. I had been looking something like this thru'out the last week. I only have the problem that even if I increase the executionTimeout and maxRequestLength at both ends i.e. the Web service and the Client consuming the web service did not helped at all. In fact this is allowing only couple of hundreds of KBs data quite less than even 1MB.. Can you please help me further. Thanks a lot in advance.. Best Regards
- Scott Lysle19y ago
  Did you change the execution Timeout too? That might help; here is a part of a web.config file setting both. <system.web> <httpRuntime executionTimeout="3600" maxRequestLength="8192" ...
michel19y ago
You could also use WSE which implements MTOM (Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism) that is designed to upload raw data outside the SOAP message body. This avoids converting your byte[] to a base64 encoded string on the client, and decode it on the server : this reduce both client and server loads. The only problem is that WSE required the wse runtime on both the client and the server. But, if I remember well, WSE is also able to work with a client that doesn't speak MTOM. I used it a time ago to transfer sound and images files (upload and download) throw web services. For more info : http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/webservices/aa740663.aspx and http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-mtom/
Srini19y ago
Scott, I am new to .net. I am testing this code in my development box I replaced the tempuri.org with localhost, but I am getting unable to connect to the server error while calling the UploadFile as listed below: string sTmp = srv.UploadFile(data, strFile); Do you have any suggestion?

Introduction

This article shall describe an approach that may be used to upload any sort of a file through a web service from a Windows Forms application. The approach demonstrated does not rely on the ASP.NET file uploader control and allows the developer the opportunity to upload files programmatically and without user intervention. Such an approach may be useful for doing something like processing out the contents of a local message queue when internet service is available (if the user base were mobile and had only intermittent connectivity). The article also addresses the use of a file size check as a precursor to allowing a file to upload through the service.

Figure 1: Test Application Shown Uploading a File.

Figure 2: Mixed bag of different file types in transient storage folder.

Getting Started

The solution contains two projects; one is an ASP.NET Web Service project (Uploader) and the other is a Win Forms test application (TestUploader) used to demonstrate uploading files through the web method provided in the web service project.

The web service project contains only a single web service (FileUploader) which in turn contains only a single Web Method (UploadFile). The Win Forms application contains only a single form which contains the controls (one textbox and two buttons used in conjunction with an OpenFileDialog control) and code necessary to select and upload files through the web service.

Figure 3: Solution Explorer with the both Projects Visible.

Code: Uploader Web Service Project

The Uploader web service project is an ASP.NET web service project containing a single web service called, "FileUploader"; this web service exposes a single web method called, "UploadFile".

The code for this web service begins with the following:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Web;
using System.Collections;
using System.Web.Services;
using System.Web.Services.Protocols;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.IO;
namespace Uploader
{
/// <summary>
/// This web method will provide an web method to load any
/// file onto the server; the UploadFile web method
/// will accept the report and store it in the local file system.
/// </summary>
[WebService(Namespace = "http://tempuri.org/")]
[WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)]
[ToolboxItem(false)]
public class FileUploader : System.Web.Services.WebService
{

The class starts out with the default imports; I added System.IO to the defaults to support the use of file and memory streams. The web service namespace is left as the default http://tempuri.org/ which of course will have to updated if the service were deployed.

The remainder of the code supplied in this class is used to define the web method used to upload the file; the code is annotated. The essential process is that, files converted to byte arrays are passed along with the full name of the file (not the path) including the extension as arguments to the UploadFile web method. The byte array is passed to a memory stream, and a file stream is opened pointing to a newly created file (named the name of the original file) within the target folder used to store the files. Once the file stream has been created, the memory stream is written into the file stream and then the memory stream and file stream are disposed of.

The web method is setup to return a string; if all goes well, the string returned will read, "OK", if not, the error message encountered will be returned to the caller.

[WebMethod]
public string UploadFile(byte[] f, string fileName)
{
// the byte array argument contains the content of the file
// the string argument contains the name and extension
// of the file passed in the byte array
try
{
// instance a memory stream and pass the
// byte array to its constructor
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(f);
// instance a filestream pointing to the
// storage folder, use the original file name
// to name the resulting file
FileStream fs = new FileStream(System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.MapPath
("~/TransientStorage/") +fileName, FileMode.Create);
// write the memory stream containing the original
// file as a byte array to the filestream
ms.WriteTo(fs);
// clean up
ms.Close();
fs.Close();
fs.Dispose();
// return OK if we made it this far
return "OK";
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// return the error message if the operation fails
return ex.Message.ToString();
}
}

Code: Test Uploader Win Forms Application

The test application contains a single Windows Form class; this form contains a text box used to display the name of the file selected for upload, a browse button used to launch an open file dialog box which is used to navigate to and select a file for upload, and an upload button which is used to pass the file to web service so that the selected file may be stored on the server.

The code for this class begins with the following:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.IO;
namespace TestUploader
{
/// <summary>
/// A test form used to upload a file from a windows application using
/// the Uploader Web Service
/// </summary>
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// do nothing
}

Aside from the default imports, I have added only System.IO to the list. This being necessary to support working with files. The namespace and class declarations are in the default configuration. In addition to System.IO, the project also adds in a web reference pointing to the File Uploader web service, the reference is given the alias of Uploader.

The next bit of code in the class is private method used to prepare the file for submittal to the web service and to actually make that submittal. The code below is annotated to describe the activity but the essential parts of the operation are to check the file size to see if the web service will accept the file (by default, the web server will accept uploads smaller than 4 MB in size, the web config file must be updated in order to support larger uploads), and to convert the file to a byte array. When everything is ready, the byte array and the name of the file including the extension is passed to an instance of the web service web method.

Note that, when setting up the demo, you will have remove and add the web reference back into the project in order for it to work for you.

/// <summary>
/// Upload any file to the web service; this function may be
/// used in any application where it is necessary to upload
/// a file through a web service
/// </summary>
/// <param name="filename">Pass the file path to upload</param>
private void UploadFile(string filename)
{
try
{
// get the exact file name from the path
String strFile = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(filename);
// create an instance fo the web service
TestUploader.Uploader.FileUploader srv = new
TestUploader.Uploader.FileUploader();
// get the file information form the selected file
FileInfo fInfo = new FileInfo(filename);
// get the length of the file to see if it is possible
// to upload it (with the standard 4 MB limit)
long numBytes = fInfo.Length;
double dLen = Convert.ToDouble(fInfo.Length / 1000000);
// Default limit of 4 MB on web server
// have to change the web.config to if
// you want to allow larger uploads
if (dLen < 4)
{
// set up a file stream and binary reader for the
// selected file
FileStream fStream = new FileStream(filename,
FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(fStream);
// convert the file to a byte array
byte[] data = br.ReadBytes((int)numBytes);
br.Close();
// pass the byte array (file) and file name to the web service
string sTmp = srv.UploadFile(data, strFile);
fStream.Close();
fStream.Dispose();
// this will always say OK unless an error occurs,
// if an error occurs, the service returns the error message
MessageBox.Show("File Upload Status: " + sTmp, "File Upload");
}
else
{
// Display message if the file was too large to upload
MessageBox.Show("The file selected exceeds the size limit for uploads.", "File Size");
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// display an error message to the user
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString(), "Upload Error");
}
}

Following the UploadFile method, the next bit of code is used to handle the browse button's click event. This code is used merely to display an open file dialog to the user and to take the file selected through that dialog and display the file name in the form's file name text box.

/// <summary>
/// Allow the user to browse for a file
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender"></param>
/// <param name="e"></param>
private void btnBrowse_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
openFileDialog1.Title = "Open File";
openFileDialog1.Filter = "All Files|*.*";
openFileDialog1.FileName = "";
try
{
openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory = "C:\\Temp";
}
catch
{
// skip it
}
openFileDialog1.ShowDialog();
if (openFileDialog1.FileName == "")
return;
else
txtFileName.Text = openFileDialog1.FileName;
}

The class wraps up with the button click event handler for the Upload button. This handler merely checks for text in the file name text box and, if something is there, it sends the value to the Upload method.

/// <summary>
/// If the user has selected a file, send it to the upload method,
/// the upload method will convert the file to a byte array and
/// send it through the web service
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender"></param>
/// <param name="e"></param>
private void btnUpload_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (txtFileName.Text != string.Empty)
UploadFile(txtFileName.Text);
else
MessageBox.Show("You must select a file first.", "No File Selected");
}

That wraps up all of the client and server side code necessary to upload any sort of file to a server from a Win Forms application.

Summary

This article was intended to demonstrate an easy approach to uploading any sort of a file to a web server from a Win Forms application. This example uses the default upload size of 4096 KB, if you need to upload larger files, you will need to alter this value by changing the httpRuntime maxRequestLength property to the desired value; at the same time you may need to increase the executionTimeout property to a greater value as well in order to support longer upload times. Take care when altering the values as Microsoft has established the default 4 MB limit to provide some safety against attempts to upload extremely large files that may hamper access to the server.