Uploading binary data from C# to PHP

Question

I want to upload files from a Windows C# application to a web server running PHP.

I am aware of the WebClient.UploadFile method but I would like to be able to upload a file in chunks so that I can monitor progress and be able to pause/resume.

Therefore I am reading part of the file and using the WebClient.UploadData method.

The problem I am having is that I don't know how to access data sent with UploadData from php. If I do print_r on the post data I can see that there is binary data but I don't know the key to access it. How can I access the binary data? Is there a better way I should be doing this altogether?

String file = "C:\\Users\\Public\\uploadtest\\4.wmv";

using (BinaryReader b = new BinaryReader(File.Open(file, FileMode.Open)))
{
    int pos = 0;
    int required = 102400;
    b.BaseStream.Seek(pos, SeekOrigin.Begin);
    byte[] by = b.ReadBytes(required);

    using (WebClient wc = new WebClient()){
        wc.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
        byte[] result = wc.UploadData("http://192.168.0.52/html/application.php", "POST", by);
        String s = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(result, 0, result.Length);
        MessageBox.Show(s);
    }
}

Answer 1

This is how I do my HTTP communications.

I guess when I reach using(), the HTTP connection is being set up, and inside the using() {...} body you can do pausing and stuff.

string valueString = "...";
string uriString = "http://someUrl/somePath";
HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uriString);
httpWebRequest.Method = "POST";
string postData = "key=" + Uri.EscapeDataString(valueString);
byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(postData);
httpWebRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
httpWebRequest.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
using (Stream dataStream = httpWebRequest.GetRequestStream())
{
    // do pausing and stuff here by using a while loop and changing byteArray.Length into the desired length of your chunks
    dataStream.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
}
HttpWebResponse httpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.GetResponse();
Stream receiveStream = httpWebResponse.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader readStream = new StreamReader(receiveStream);
string internalResponseString = readStream.ReadToEnd();

But when uploading a file, you should probably use multipart/form-data in stead of application/x-www-form-urlencoded. See also: http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.file-upload.post-method.php

In php you can use the superglobal variable $_FILES (eg print_r($_FILES); ) to access the uploaded file.

And also read this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/20000831/1209443 for more information how to deal with multipart/form-data