Move or Copy SharePoint Document Library Files Programmatically

In this post I published some code that took a look at using FrontPage Server Extentions to upload a file to a document library where the requirement was to be able to save metadata along with the document and not use the API. Here are a few more static methods that can be inserted into that code to provide simple file moving or copying functionality from a remote client. Documentation about the move RPC method can be found here. To copy rather than move the file, change the doCopy flag to true. An alternative method for remotely moving a file from one document library to another location is to use the copy web service which is documented on MSDN here. For local SharePoint calls, the appropriate API method is SPListItem.CopyTo or SPFile.MoveTo.

Update: You can download a comprehensive c# class library to automate RPC calls - including moving files (even between web sites or servers). See this blog post for more information.

        public static bool Move(string oldUrl, string newUrl)

        {

            string result = "";

            string webUrl = GetWebURL(oldUrl);

            oldUrl = oldUrl.Substring(webUrl.Length + 1);

            newUrl = newUrl.Substring(webUrl.Length + 1);

            return Move(webUrl, oldUrl, newUrl, out result);

        }

        public static bool Move(string webUrl, string oldUrl, string newUrl, out string result)

        {

            EnsureFolders(webUrl, newUrl);

            string renameOption = "findbacklinks";

            string putOption = "overwrite,createdir,migrationsemantics";

            bool doCopy = false;

            string method = "method=move+document%3a12.0.4518.1016&service_name=%2f&oldUrl={0}&newUrl={1}&url_list=[]&rename_option={2}&put_option={3}&docopy={4}";

            method = String.Format(method, oldUrl, newUrl, renameOption, putOption, doCopy.ToString().ToLower());

            try

            {

                using (WebClient webClient = new WebClient())

                {

                    webClient.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                    webClient.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/x-vermeer-urlencoded");

                    webClient.Headers.Add("X-Vermeer-Content-Type", "application/x-vermeer-urlencoded");

                    result = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(webClient.UploadData(webUrl + "/_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.dll", "POST", Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(method)));

                    if (result.IndexOf("\n<p>message=successfully") < 0)

                        throw new Exception(result);

                }

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                result = ex.Message;

                return false;

            }

            return true;

        }

        public static void EnsureFolders(string rootUrl, string folderUrl)

        {

            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(rootUrl.TrimEnd('/'));

            string[] segments = folderUrl.Split('/');

            for (int i = 0; i < segments.Length - 1; i++)

            {

                sb.Append("/");

                sb.Append(segments[i]);

                CreateFolder(sb.ToString());

            }

        }

        public static bool CreateFolder(string folderURL)

        {

            try

            {

                WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(folderURL);

                request.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

                request.Method = "MKCOL";

                WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();

                response.Close();

                return true;

            }

            catch (WebException)

            {

                return false;

            }

        }

Redirecting to an Error Page

The SPUtility.TransferToErrorPage method is a convenient way to redirect users to an error page in the event that an unhandled exception occurs. This post (from Wellington no less!) covers this method and a few other static methods from the SPUtility class well. One thing worth pointing out is the use of the second overload to the TransferToErrorPage method. This allows a link to appear in the message so that users can be redirected to another page (for example to a long running job status list item for more information on the error). To use this override, pass the link text and link url and then include a '{0}' (like the composite format syntax) in your message where you need the link to appear.