trying to FTP a file with a special character

Question

I have the code:

FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(url);
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;
request.UseBinary = true;   // Binary mode when downloading
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(user, password);
FtpWebResponse response = (FtpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

I always get the error: "The requested URI is invalid for this FTP command".

The problem is the url contains a "#". Since I can't stop people from creating that type of file, is there a way I can escape special characters and still process the file?

Answer 1

Do a string replace with "#" ->"%23"
URL encodings shouldn't contain a hash because:

Some characters present the possibility of being misunderstood within URLs for various reasons. These characters should also always be encoded.

Answer 2

You can use HttpUtility.UrlEncode to encode the special characters.