How to delete all text in a text file on ftp server without deleting file itself in vb.net

Question

Hi I am doing a chat orientated program in vb.net. I have everything working nicely but there is a feature I am trying to add where if the user types /clear it will then delete the chat text from the file, (the chat is an ftp connection and it writes to a text file)

i'm hoping to only delete text from the file not the whole file itself, i have tried appending but that as you probably know already just writes extra text to the file.

If anyone can help it would be great cheers :D

Answer 1

The way to go should be upload a new empty file overwriting the one on the FTP, with the same filename and path.

Dim wcFTP As New WebClient()

'wcFTP.Proxy = ...
wcFTP.BaseAddress = "ftp://foobar.domain.com"
wcFTP.Credentials = New NetworkCredential("user", "pass") 

Dim sFilePath As String '= ...
Dim sFtpPath As String = wcFTP.BaseAddress & sFolder & Path.GetFileName(sFilePath)

wcFTP.UploadFile(sFtpPath, sFilePath)

Where sFilePath is the path of the empty file with the same name as the one in the server.

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To get an empty file you can donwload and empty the file on the ftp, or simply create a new file with the same name and no data. For example:

Dim sFilePath As String = "C:\Folder\fileName.xml"
File.Create(sFilePath).Dispose()