Changing to the root directory with FtpWebRequest
Many customers ask us how they can use the CWD command with our FtpWebRequest.
The answer is: you cannot use the command directly, but you can modify the uri parameter to achieve the same result.
Let's say you're using the following format:
String uri = "ftp://myFtpUserName:myFtpUserPassword\@myFtpUrl";
FtpWebRequest Request = (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uri);
Request.Method = "LIST";
The above example will bring you to your user's directory and list all the contents there. Now let's say you want to go 2 directories backwards and list the contents there (provided your user has permissions to do that). You close the previous FtpWebRequest and issue a new one with this uri
uri = "ftp://myFtpUserName:myFtpUserPassword\@myFtpUrl/%2E%2E/%2E%2E";
This is equivalent to logging in with your user's credentials and then using cd ../../
Note: if you try using the ”..” directly without escaping them the uri class will strip them, so "ftp://myFtpUserName:myFtpUserPassword@myFtpUrl/../.." is equivalent to "ftp://myFtpUserName:myFtpUserPassword@myFtpUrl/"
Now let's say you want to go to another user's directory which is one level above the root. If you don't specify a user name and password it's equivalent to logging in as anonymous user. Then you issue a new FtpWebRequest with the following uri
"ftp://myFtpUrl/%2F/anotherUserDir"
This is equivalent to logging in as anonymous and then doing
Cd /
cd anotherUserDirectory