C# read content of a file accessed via url into byte-array

Question

my company is working with an Excel-file (xlsx) on Sharepoint. For my application I need the content of the file as a byte array.

When located on my local machine, I would use System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes(path).

How can I do the same with a file hosted on a server? The url is something like "https://sharepoint.com/excel.xlsx"

I tried new WebClient().DownloadData(url) but this returns something different I can't use. I think it returns the byte array of the file itself and not the content of the file.

Any ideas?

Johnathan Barclay · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-13 11:42:34Z

4

Rather than WebClient, try HttpClient:

using (var client = new HttpClient())
using (HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync("https://sharepoint.com/excel.xlsx"))
{
    byte[] fileContents = await response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync();
}

answered Nov 13, 2019 at 11:42

Johnathan Barclay

20.5k2 gold badges27 silver badges40 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

sandy Over a year ago

Unfortunately response.Content seems not to be the content of the excelfile. With ReadAllBytes(localPath) I get byte[18491], with the httpResponse only byte[16]

sandy Over a year ago

Sorry, forget it. My response get always a 401 error. have to look how i can solve that before i can say if your solution was helpful for me

SP 2022 Over a year ago

@Johnathan : would you please give some technical reasons why not use webclient :-) because i am using webclient, would like to know if any drawback.

Johnathan Barclay Over a year ago

@HabiburRahaman this is as good an explanation as any: stackoverflow.com/a/27737601/8126362

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

C# read content of a file accessed via url into byte-array

1 Answer 1

4 Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

4 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related