xml file back up? - asp.net

I have a asp.net application which reads and updates and xml file in my file system.I do have the options edit and save.As of now it serves my purpose but what if the user edits the values and saves but for some reason he wants to restore the old values to the xml file.I want to
have an option called reset which will get the old values of the xml file incase the user wants to get back to the default values.How do i create a back up to the original file and how do i call that xml file ??? Can any one suggest whether i am in right path or not?
I am using Linq-to xml here .

Keep a copy of the original XML file. Call it xml_file.bk and when the user clicks "reset" delete the current XML file and make a copy of XML_File.bk to the real name with the .xml extension.
You can use File.Move(sourcefile, destinationFile) to make a copy of the original.
File.Move documentation.

Related

Overwrite an existing file programmatically

I have a QDialogBox where there is an option to upload a file.
I can upload files and save them to a folder. It works fine.
But if in case there is a file that already exists in the folder, I am not sure how to handle that scenario.
I want to warn the user that the file with same name already exists.
Is there a Windows API that I can use in this case? (because when we manually save an existing file, we get a warning, how can I use that?)
If someone can point me to that documentation, it will be great.
If you are using a QFileDialog, confirmOverwrite is activated by default, so, if getSaveFileName() returned a non-empty QString, then that means the user accepted to overwrite the file. Other way, you get an empty QString.
Then, you can check if the file exists, and remove it in that case, but you know that the user was Ok with that.
There is always a potential race condition when saving files. Checking to see if the file exists first is not safe, because some other process could create a file with the same name in between the check and when you actually write the file.
To avoid problems, the file must be opened with exclusive access, and in such a way that it immediately fails if it already exists.
If you want to do things properly, take a look at these two answers:
How do I create a file in python without overwriting an existing
file
Safely create a file if and only if it does not exist with
python
You can use QDir::entryList() to get the file names in a directory if you're not using a QFileDialog.
QDir dir("/path/to/directory");
QStringList fileNames = dir.entryList();
Then iterating through file names, you can see if there's a file with the same name. If you need it, I can give an example for that too. It'd be C++, but easily adaptable to Python.
Edit: Smasho just suggested that using QDir::exists() method. You can check if the file name exists in the directory with this method instead of iterating like I suggested.
if(dir.exists(uploadedFileName))

Get file upload data from post data in ASP.NET

I am looping through the posted values on a form with a view to doing something with them (so don't have access to the controls themselves). This is the process I have to take on this project so that is why I'm doing it this way.
On the form I will have a file upload box but I am not sure how I would upload the file that has been selected from it as I can't just do Control.SaveAs(). When I return the posted value using Request.Form.Item[i] I get the file name I chose but not the full path like I would expect.
Can someone point me in the right direction please?
Thanks.
If you want to manipulate the uploaded files directly, and not through a FileUploader control, you should use the Request.Files collection and not the Request.Form
File Upload controls only pass the file name and the contents. I'm not sure why you would need a folder name, especially since the folder name would be for the client - I can't expect that this would have any value to you since you want to save the file on the server.
As I am unsure of your goals, I would recommend using Server.MapPath("~/Folder") to find a suitable folder to save your uploaded files to

Asp.net creating tab delimited txt file

I have to create a tab delimited txt file from a query.
I want to call an HttpHandler that returns my txt file as a stream, I don't want to create the file phisically.
1st question:
what is the best practice to create the tab delimited txt file from a query result?
I have to fetch all rows and create the file manually?
2nd question:
How to set a timeout for the HttpHandler that creates the file?
Thanks for your time.
I would create a plain old http output stream and change the content type to 'text/plain' which means that you don't need to physically create the file on the web server, and if you add the content-disposition header to the output and specify that it has an attachment called something like 'report.txt' the user will be prompted to Open or Save the content, rather than just viewing it in the browser like a normal web page.
You can use the Server.ScriptTimeout = x to set the script timeout by gaining access to the current HttpContext object
Hope this helps

how to check whether a file exists before creating it

I am creating an xml file. I need to check first if the file exists or not. If the file does not exist, create it and add the data cmg from a .cs file.
If the file exists, don't create the file just add the data cmg from a .cs file.
My code looks like this:
string filename="c:\\employee.xml";
XmlTextWriter tw=new XmlTextWriter(filename,null);//null represents
the Encoding Type//
tw.Formatting=Formatting.Indented; //for xml tags to be indented//
tw.WriteStartDocument(); //Indicates the starting of document (Required)//
tw.WriteStartElement("Employees");
tw.WriteStartElement("Employee","Genius");
tw.WriteStartElement("EmpID","1");
tw.WriteAttributeString("Name","krishnan");
tw.WriteElementString("Designation","Software Developer");
tw.WriteElementString("FullName","krishnan Lakshmipuram Narayanan");
tw.WriteEndElement();
tw.WriteEndElement();
tw.WriteEndDocument();
tw.Flush();
tw.Close();
so next time we add data to file we need to check if the file exits and add data to xml file
and as we have made empID as a primary key, if user tries to make duplicate entry we need to avoid
Is this possible to do?
if (!File.Exists(filename))
{
// create your file
}
or
if (File.Exists(filename))
{
File.Delete(filename);
}
// then create your file
File class is in System.IO namespace (add using System.IO; to your file)
You can't append records to an XML file, you have to read the file and then rewrite it.
So, just check if the file exists, and read the records from it. Then write the file including all previous records and the new record.
Have a look at the File.Exists method here
Testing for existance of a file before attempting to create it inherently is subject to a "things change after check" race condition. Who can guarantee you that your application isn't preempted and put to sleep for a moment after you checked, someone else creates/deletes that file, your app gets to run again and does exactly the opposite of what you intended ?
Windows (as well as all UN*X variants) supports file open/create modes that allow to perform that create-if-nonexistant/open-if-existant operation as a single call.
As far as .NET goes, this means for your task (create an XML file) you'd first create a System.IO.FileStream with the appropriate modes, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.filemode.aspx and then pass that stream to the XmlWriter constructor. That's safer than simply performing an "exists" check and hoping for the best.

Send file using Response.BinaryWrite() and delete it afterwards

As part of a Classic ASP Project the user should be able to download a file - which is dynamicly extracted from a zip archive and sent via Response.BinaryWrite() - by simply calling "document.asp?id=[some id here]".
Extracting and sending is not the problem but I need to delete the extracted file after the download finished. I never did any ASP or VBA before and I guess that's why I stuck here.
I tried deleting the file right after Response.WriteBinary() using FileSystemObject.DeleteFile() but this results in a 404-Error on the client-side.
How can I wait till the download finished and then do additional actions?
Edit: This is how my code looks like:
'Unzip a specified file from an archive and put it's path in *document*
set stream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
stream.Open
stream.Type = 1 ' binary
stream.LoadFromFile(document)
Response.BinaryWrite(stream.Read)
'Here I want to delete the *document*
I suspect that the point you are calling the DeleteFile method the file you are trying delete is currently locked by something else, the question is what?
Try including:-
stream.Close()
after your BinaryWrite. Also make sure you've done a similar thing to the component you've used to extract the file. If the component doesn't offer any obviouse "close" methods they trying assigning Nothing to the variables referencing them.
Is it not possible to stream the file into memory, then binary write the stream to the browser, this way the file is never created on the server and there is no need to delete it.
I found a solution: The extracted files are saved in a special directory and everytime a user runs the document.asp it checks this directory for files older than one hour and deletes them.
I think it's the simplest way to manage, but furthermore I would prefer a solution where the document is deleted after downloading.

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