GetFile Method  
 

Copy a file from the server to the local system.

Syntax

object.GetFile( LocalFile, RemoteFile, [Options], [Offset] )

Parameters

LocalFile
A string that specifies the file on the local system that will be created, overwritten or appended to. The file pathing and name conventions must be that of the local host.
RemoteFile
A string that specifies the file on the server that will be transferred to the local system. The file pathing and name conventions must be that of the server.
Options
An optional numeric value which specifies one or more options. This argument may be any one of the following values:
Value Constant Description
0 httpTransferDefault This option specifies the default transfer mode should be used. If the local file exists, it will be overwritten with the contents of the remote file. If the Options argument is omitted, this is the transfer mode which will be used.
1 httpTransferConvert If the resource being downloaded from the server is textual, the data is automatically converted so that the end of line character sequence is compatible with the Windows platform. Individual carriage return or linefeed characters are converted to carriage return/linefeed character sequences.
2 httpTransferCompress This option informs the server that the client is willing to accept compressed data. If the server supports compression for the specified resource, then the data will be automatically expanded before being returned to the caller. This option is selected by default if compression has been enabled by setting the Compression property to True. This option is ignored if the Offset parameter is non-zero.
4 httpTransferErrorData This option causes the client to accept error data from the server if the request fails. If this option is specified, an error response from the server will not cause the method to fail. Instead, the response is returned to the client and the method will succeed. If this option is used, your application should check the ResultCode property to obtain the HTTP status code returned by the server. This will enable you to determine if the operation was successful.
Offset
An optional integer value that specifies a byte offset into the file. If this value is greater than zero, the server must support the ability to specify a byte range with the request to download the file, otherwise this method will fail.

Return Value

A value of zero is returned if the operation was successful, otherwise a non-zero error code is returned which indicates the cause of the failure.

Remarks

The GetFile method copies an existing file from the server to the local system. This method will cause the current thread to block until the file transfer completes, a timeout occurs or the transfer is canceled. During the transfer, the OnProgress event will fire periodically, enabling the application to update any user interface objects such as a progress bar.

Specifying the httpTransferCompress option does not guarantee that the data returned by the server will actually be compressed, it only informs the server that the client is willing to accept compressed data. Whether or not a particular resource is compressed depends on the server configuration, and the server may decide to only compress certain types of resources, such as text files.

If compression has been enabled and the server returns compressed data, it will be automatically expanded before being returned to the caller. If the application is using the OnProgress event to determine the amount of data being returned by the server, it is important to keep in mind that the values reflect the size of the compressed data.

See Also

Compression Property, GetData Method, PutData Method, PutFile Method, OnProgress Event