Reusing FtpWebRequest

FtpWebRequest can be used for only 1 request, like getting the file size or to download the file, but not both. You have to create 2 FtpWebRequests. Behind the scene, FtpWebRequest notices that it is the same URL and credentials and will reuse the same ftp connection without closing it, as long IsKeepAlieve is true, which is the default setting.

This is a sad example of bad design by Microsoft. Instead of letting us explicitly open and close a connection, they want to do it automatically for us and confuse everyone.

I don't think this will be answered so I'm "closing it" by telling you how I solved it.

Well, I didn't really solve it. I did however test the download by recreating the FtpWebRequest and noticed that on the FTP server it behaved as I wanted i.e. only one log on and then sequentially executing my requests.

This is how the code getting the file size and starting the download ended up:

// Start by fetching the file size
FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(sURI);

request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.GetFileSize;
NetworkCredential nc = new NetworkCredential(sUser, sPwd);
request.Credentials = nc;
request.UseBinary = true;
request.UsePassive = true;
request.KeepAlive = true;

// Get the result (size)
FtpWebResponse resp = (FtpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
Int64 contLen = resp.ContentLength;

// and now download the file
request = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(sURI);
request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.DownloadFile;
request.Credentials = nc;
request.UseBinary = true;
request.UsePassive = true;
request.KeepAlive = true;

resp = (FtpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

So no answer on if it's possible to reset the FtpWebRequest for re-use. But at least I know there's no redundant information being transferred.

Thanks to everybody who took an interest and spent time thinking of an answer.