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Link to an external file in iTextSharp

I want to provide links to files uploaded on the server in iTextSharp documents.
The problem I'm facing is the string containing my file path is getting mangled en-route from my code onto the page.
Let's say the full path for the file, I'm trying to link is "C:\site uploads\some_file.txt".
I'm trying to create the link using the "Anchor" object, like so:
string path = "C:\site uploads\some_file.txt";
string name = "some_file.txt";
Anchor anchor = new Anchor(name, new Font(Font.FontFamily.UNDEFINED, 12));
anchor.Reference = path;
pdfDoc.Add(anchor);
ASP.NET C# will double up those backslashes in "path", as it does, but iTextSharp will further alter the string to something like C%5%20site%HCuploads%20some%34file.txt, which does not work as a clickable link in my document. FYI, I know I didn't get my % codes just right; those are offered for example only.
I'm not trying to launch any external applications from my document, I just want to enable the user to download this file. Any advice would be appreciated.

Why do you link to a local file? If someone else downloads that PDF on their machine, it won't have that directory.
The backslashes and colon are escaped.
Use https:// links. If you do want to link to local files, use a file:// link.

In pdf hyperlink modify date of pdf at runtime using C# .net

One pdf is generated and I am adding link of website in some text of pdf using aspose and below code,
var link = new Aspose.Pdf.Annotations.LinkAnnotation(document.Pages[t.p], userSignRect)
{
Action = new Aspose.Pdf.Annotations.GoToURIAction(requestHostAddress.Replace("http://", "https://") + "/document-details/" + documentId)
};
Now I want to append pdf's modified date run time in hyperlink.
Example : https://document-details/documentId/ ModifiedDateofPdfRuntime
Please help me/guide me how to do that.
Edit: I do not want current modified date.
Usecase : We have generated pdf and given to user with our basic hyperlink url in pdf.(which is a happy scenario)
But if someone is altering my pdf then i won't know and pdf's url will still route to my website.
To overcome same i want to append PDF's modified date object in url which will fetch pdf info and get date.
something like this, is it possible ?

This should work.
Action = new Aspose.Pdf.Annotations.GoToURIAction(requestHostAddress
.Replace("http://", "https://") + "/document-details/" + documentId + "_" + DateTime.Now.ToString())

I guess you are looking for something like this
DateTime creation = File.GetCreationTime(#"C:\test.txt");
DateTime modification = File.GetLastWriteTime(#"C:\test.txt");
and then you can add checks to check if file is modified or not.
code is copied from here.

You need to use ModDate property from PdfFileInfo class:
using Aspose.Pdf.Facades;
//...
var fileInfo = new PdfFileInfo(dataDir + "GetFileInfo.pdf");
var modificationDate = fileInfo.ModDate;
Hope it helps. Otherwise, feel free to ask me.
Note: I am working as Developer Evangelist at Aspose.

Receiving message of issue with content in Excel File

I am currently building an Excel file by hand using OpenXml. I'm in the process of adding the sheets, however, I have come across an issue. I have a loop that adds the names of each sheet in but once it runs and I try to open the file, I get the following message:
"We found a problem with some content in 'FileName.xlsx'. Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can? If you trust the source of this workbook, Click Yes."
I think the issue might be due that I am adding in the name of each sheet using a string variable. When I take it out and add something else, it works. Below is my code where I am looping through and adding my sheets.
//Technology Areas
foreach (DataRow dr in techAreaDS.Rows)
{
var data = dr["TechAreaName"].ToString().Split('-');
var techArea = data[2].TrimStart();
var techAreaSheet = new Sheet { Id = workbookPart.GetIdOfPart(worksheetPart),
SheetId = sheetId, Name = techArea };
sheets.Append(techAreaSheet);
sheetId++;
}
I've seen people mention it is an issue with cells having strings that can be converted into strings, but in this case, the string will always be a string. Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT: I've figured out the problem. The issue is the Name property has a Max Length of 31. One of my items has a 42 length, hence the error. I did find a cool set of code to validate my OpenXml. Link.
UPDATE:
Oddly enough, someone thinks this question was about finding some code to help validate what I was doing. It was not... The question is clear: why was I receiving an error when trying to name sheets. I was not asking for validation code, though I found some.
I do ask that if you wish to help, please read the question versus assume what I was asking, and if you don't know what I wish to have answered, ask...

In order to find out the issue(s) causing this error, you need to validate the generated document.
Besides using the built in validation method as described here, which doesn't show you all issues as I found out, I suggest that you download and install Microsoft's Open XML SDK 2.5 for Microsoft Office.
It contains Microsoft's Open XML SDK 2.5 Productivity Tool, which is very helpful here:
Create a copy of the damaged XLSX file, and apply the fixes as Microsoft Excel is suggesting (suppose you have the files FileName_corrupt.xlsx and FileName_fixed.xlsx
Then, run Microsoft's Open XML SDK 2.5 Productivity Tool, open FileName_corrupt.xlsx, select "Compare Files" and specify the 2nd file FileName_fixed.xlsx. This allows you to compare the XML structure of both files.
Let Microsoft's Open XML SDK 2.5 Productivity Tool generate C# code from both files: Open them first, then right-click on the root level and select "Reflect Code". This will create C# code which allows you to generate the same file. Save both C# code versions (i.e. FileName_corrupt.cs and FileName_fixed.cs)
Now you can compare the differences via Visual Studio: Either use
devenv.exe /diff FileName_corrupt.cs FileName_fixed.cs
to compare them, or use the batch file I've created to launch the VS compare - this is a hidden feature in Visual Studio, it allows to compare 2 local files being not part of TFS.
This way you should be able to work out the differences and allow you to fix your code.
NOTE: For a first validation, I do suggest to use the validation code. Only if it still fails, use the steps above. For validation you can use
public static string ValidateOpenXmlDocument(OpenXmlPackage pXmlDoc, bool throwExceptionOnValidationFail=false)
{
using (var docToValidate = pXmlDoc)
{
var validator = new DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Validation.OpenXmlValidator();
var validationErrors = validator.Validate(docToValidate).ToList();
var errors = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
if (validationErrors.Any())
{
var errorMessage = string.Format("ValidateOpenXmlDocument: {0} validation error(s) with document", validationErrors.Count);
errors.AppendLine(errorMessage);
errors.AppendLine();
}
foreach (var error in validationErrors)
{
errors.AppendLine("Description: " + error.Description);
errors.AppendLine("ErrorType: " + error.ErrorType);
errors.AppendLine("Node: " + error.Node);
errors.AppendLine("Path: " + error.Path.XPath);
errors.AppendLine("Part: " + error.Part.Uri);
if (error.RelatedNode != null)
{
errors.AppendLine("Related Node: " + error.RelatedNode);
errors.AppendLine("Related Node Inner Text: " + error.RelatedNode.InnerText);
}
errors.AppendLine();
errors.AppendLine("==============================");
errors.AppendLine();
}
if (validationErrors.Any() && throwExceptionOnValidationFail)
{
throw new Exception(errors.ToString());
}
if (errors.Length > 0)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(errors.ToString());
}
return errors.ToString();
}
along with
public static void ValidateExcelDocument(string fileName)
{
using (var xlsx = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(fileName, true))
{
ValidateOpenXmlDocument(xlsx);
}
}
With a slight modification, you can easily use the code above for Microsoft Word validation too:
public static void ValidateWordDocument(string fileName)
{
using (var docx = WordprocessingDocument.Open(fileName, true))
{
ValidateOpenXmlDocument(docx);
}
}

I've figured out the problem. The issue is the Name property has a Max Length of 31 characters. The text I'm trying to use sometimes exceeds that limit (one has 42 characters). I also found a pretty cool set of code to validate my Open Xml to find out what the specific issue is. Link

How do I remove version number from file path? - Winforms c#

I am wondering how to remove the version number from a file path in a Windows Form Application.
Currently I wish to save some users application data to a .xml file located in the roaming user profile settings.
To do this I use:
get
{
return Application.UserAppDataPath + "\\FileName.xml";
}
However this returns the following string:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\folder\subfolder\1.0.0.0\FileName.xml
and I was wondering if there is a non-hack way to remove the version number from the file path so the file path looks like this:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\folder\subfolder\FileName.xml
Besides parsing the string looking for the last "\", I do not know what to do.
Thanks

Use Directory.GetParent method for this purpose.
get
{
var dir = Directory.GetParent(Application.UserAppDataPath);
return Path.Combine(dir.FullName, "FileName.xml");
}
Also note that I've used Path.Combine instead of concatenating paths, this method helps you to avoid so many problems. Never concatenate strings to create path.

ASP.NET MVC Website Read File from Disk Problem

I'm reading a text file containing an insert statement for SQL using C# in an MVC Website I'm working on. When debugging the function I'm using works fine and the insert occurs. But once I publish the site and run it on my local machine (with IIS set-up to use asp.net 4.0 even) it doesn't seem to work.
if (Request.Files != null && Request.Files["txtImportFile"] != null)
{
//newFilePath = Server.MapPath("\\" + DateTime.Now.Ticks + Request.Files["txtImportFile"].FileName);
string[] temp_string = Request.Files["txtImportFile"].FileName.Split(new char[] { '\\' });
string temp_filename = temp_string[temp_string.Count() - 1];
//newFilePath = Server.MapPath("\\temp\\" + DateTime.Now.Ticks + Request.Files["txtImportFile"].FileName);
newFilePath = Server.MapPath("\\temp\\" + DateTime.Now.Ticks + temp_filename);
Request.Files["txtImportFile"].SaveAs(newFilePath);
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(newFilePath);
string contents = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();
Models.WingsRemoteDbLibrary dbLib = new Models.WingsRemoteDbLibrary();
string update_message = dbLib.UpdateSlaveItemsTable(contents);
if (System.IO.File.Exists(newFilePath))
System.IO.File.Delete(newFilePath);
RandomPopupView(update_message);
}
I hope my explanation doesn't sound vague. I'll try my best to answer any further questions. Thanks.

Workaround:
Instead of using
Server.MapPath("\\temp\\"...
Create folder under root with name "temp" and use
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.MapPath("~\\temp....

Well, "it doesn't seem to work" is pretty vague - a bit more detail would be nice! But it sounds like a permissions issue. The default profile in IIS has very little access to the disk, especially write access. It isn't really a good idea to write inside your own site anyway (I'd use an unrelated part of the disk, myself), but you will need to configure IIS to run the application in a specific named identity, with access to the disk. Configuring the account itself (not IIS - the account; for example granting "logon as a service") to run as an ASP.NET account is not particularly trivial, unfortunately.
Another thought: is your app a sub-application, i.e. is your app-root /, or is it /MyApp/ ? The reason I ask is your use of MapPath might be better expressed relative to the app-root, i.e. ~/temp/ - but again I stress; writing inside the app is risky. You really want that folder to be non-executing.

There may be an alternative solution to this problem. You can avoid messing with path and file system altogether if you can 'bake' the file into assembly at build time. Here is how you can do this:
In Visual Studio solution explorer right click on a file and go to Properties.
Set Build Action to 'Embedded Resource'.
Later you can read the file using GetManifestResourceStream:
var stream = GetType()
.Assembly
.GetManifestResourceStream("YourNameSpace.Folder.YourFile.txt");
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream)) {
var fileContent = reader.ReadToEnd();
}
More info here.