Shift-it

Collection of low-level HTTP and FTP file transfer tools

https://www.nuget.org/packages/Shift-it/

Why?

.Net has some pretty good FTP and HTTP libraries built in. However, they aren't amazingly unit-test friendly. They also wrap a lot of status results in exceptions. The protocol strictness of the libraries is also problematic when dealing with the general internet.

FTP

An old and battle hardened FTP client library, works with many old and cranky FTP servers that the standard .Net libraries can't handle.

HTTP

A HTTP client that can accept a reasonable level of invalid protocol from servers. This is a blocking, synchronous library that uses only .Net sockets, not WebClient or HttpWebRequest, and has a lot of replaceable components.

Example GET:

var rq = new HttpRequestBuilder().Get(new Uri("https://www.nuget.org/")).Build();
using (var result = new HttpClient().Request(rq)) {
    var body = result.BodyReader.ReadStringToLength();
    // . . .
}

Example POST string data, without reading result:

var client = new HttpClient();
var postRq = new HttpRequestBuilder().Put(new Uri("https://target.example.com/resource")).Build("Hello, world");
client.Request(postRq).Dispose();

Example with upload and download with files and progress:

long uploadBytes = 0;
long downloadBytes = 0;

using (var fs = File.OpenRead(@"C:\my\file.dat"))
{
    var rq = new HttpRequestBuilder()
    .Post(new Uri("http://myserver.com/whatever"))
    .Build(fs, fs.Length);

    using (var result = new HttpClient().Request(rq, b => uploadBytes = b))
    {
        var responseString = result.BodyReader.ReadStringToLength(b => downloadBytes = b);
    }
}

Performance

Thanks to skolima for these:

=== 14MB file

Measured on Windows
Time taken        Mem         Method
->2849ms          29MB        Web client
->2657ms          20MB        Web Client - stream copy, no hash
->2647ms          16MB        Web Client - stream copy, Shift-It hash
->1575ms          0MB         ShiftIt [current]
->1592ms          0MB         ShiftIt - no hashing [current]
->1616ms          0MB         ShiftIt - no compression [current]
->1574ms          0MB         ShiftIt - no hashing, no compression [current]


Measured on Mono + Linux + fast connection
Time taken        Mem     Method
->1763ms          30MB    Web client
->403ms           1MB     Web Client - stream copy, no hash
->651ms           16MB    Web Client - stream copy, Shift-It hash
->755ms           0MB     ShiftIt [current]
->603ms           0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing [current]
->762ms           0MB     ShiftIt - no compression [current]
->669ms           0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing, no compression [current]
->833ms           0MB     ShiftIt [previous]
->602ms           0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing [previous]
->903ms           0MB     ShiftIt - no compression [previous]
->601ms           0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing, no compression [previous]

=== 191MB file

Measured on Windows
Time taken        Mem        Method
->35378ms       638MB   Web client
->34211ms       334MB   Web Client - stream copy, no hash
->35382ms       320MB   Web Client - stream copy, Shift-It hash
->20292ms       0MB     ShiftIt [current]
->20157ms       0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing [current]
->20446ms       0MB     ShiftIt - no compression [current]
->19689ms       0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing, no compression [current]

Measured on Mono + Linux + fast connection
Time taken        Mem        Method
->17435ms       383MB   Web client
->5843ms        69MB    Web Client - stream copy, no hash
->9327ms        260MB   Web Client - stream copy, Shift-It hash
->12948ms       0MB     ShiftIt [current]
->8529ms        0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing [current]
->13472ms       0MB     ShiftIt - no compression [current]
->8108ms        0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing, no compression [current]
->13584ms       0MB     ShiftIt [previous]
->8237ms        0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing [previous]
->10648ms       0MB     ShiftIt - no compression [previous]
->7308ms        0MB     ShiftIt - no hashing, no compression [previous]

Todo

• Digest authentication
• chunked upload