Tech Tuesday: Creating a Task in SmartConnect to get a file from an FTP site

This week’s Tech Tuesday is from our very own Chris Dew, who will explain how to create a task in SmartConnect to get a file from an FTP site.

In SmartConnect.com and SmartConnect 21 or newer, a native FTP connector is included. Instructions for the connector can be found in this article.

We get quite a few customers that want to take files from a FTP site and utilize this file as the source of their data when running a map inside of SmartConnect. Today I have created a sample Task script that will allow you to grab a file in a Pre Integration Task and then use it for the integration.

First you can simply click on the Tasks button in any existing map, and then choose a new task called run script. This is where you can now copy the script below and paste into this window.

'EXAMPLE OF HOW TO USE FtpWebRequest

'Configuration
Const localFile As String = "C:UsersAdministratorDownloadsftpREADME.txt"
Const remoteFile As String = "/README.txt"
Const host As String = "ftp://ftp.swfwmd.state.fl.us/pub/"
Const username As String = "anonymous"
Const password As String = "email@email.com"

'Create a request
Dim URI As String = host & remoteFile
Dim ftp As System.Net.FtpWebRequest = CType(System.Net.FtpWebRequest.Create(URI), System.Net.FtpWebRequest)
'Set the credentials
ftp.Credentials = New System.Net.NetworkCredential(username, password)
'Turn off KeepAlive (will close connection on completion)
ftp.KeepAlive = False
'we want a binary
ftp.UseBinary = True
'Define the action required (in this case, download a file)
ftp.Method = System.Net.WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile

'If we were using a method that uploads data e.g. UploadFile
'we would open the ftp.GetRequestStream here an send the data

'Get the response to the Ftp request and the associated stream
Using response As System.Net.FtpWebResponse = CType(ftp.GetResponse, System.Net.FtpWebResponse)
Using responseStream As IO.Stream = response.GetResponseStream
'loop to read & write to file
Using fs As New IO.FileStream(localFile, IO.FileMode.Create)
Dim buffer(2047) As Byte
Dim read As Integer = 0
Do
	read = responseStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)
	fs.Write(buffer, 0, read)
Loop Until read = 0 'see Note(1)
responseStream.Close()
fs.Flush()
fs.Close()
End Using
responseStream.Close()
End Using
response.Close()
End Using
return true

The only configuration that needs to be done is at the very top where you determine four things:
localFile: The name and location you want to put the file on your network
remoteFile: The name of the remote file
host: FTP Site
username: Username
password: Password

Have fun with this one and use your imagination on other scripts you can use. If you have a suggestion for a new script please let us know.

Interested in SmartConnect? Please email us at sales@eonesolutions.com and we would be happy to assist you!