Reading text files on the internet

Can anyone tell me how to read a text file or a picture on the internet? For example, I want to compare the data in a string called "data", with a text file, for example, located at http://www.textfiles.com/text.txt. How would I go about downloading the text file into a string? I can do this locally with a file on my computer using:

Code:

---

string user="C:\stuff\text.txt";
string tmp="";
using (FileStream fs = File.Open(user, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
    byte[] b = new byte[1024];
    UTF8Encoding temp = new UTF8Encoding(true);

      while (fs.Read(b, 0, b.Length) > 0)
      {
            tmp += (temp.GetString(b));
      }
}

---

Like I said, this works for local files, so how can I modify this to read the file online instead?
Thanks

I just read on another forum that I would have to download the file first and then access it locally like I do now. Does anyone know how I can download the file?

The power of Google.

First item: http://www.primaryobjects.com/CMS/Article64.aspx

I havent looked at this article in detail but it will definately help you achieve your goal.

Well, I figured out how to do it. I used

Code:

---

string url="http://www.textfiles.com/text.txt";
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(url);
request.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
Stream dataStream = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataStream);
string data = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();
dataStream.Close();
response.Close();

---

It works, but is a bit slow. My second question is: How do change the code to write the data to the file instead of reading it?

did you try to read it in and store it, then alter it, then use StreamWriter to write it back?

I have now, but I don't know how to do that. Could you perhaps give me an example of how to do it?

well chances are you will have to upload it via some http since most web sites do not have direct write access to the files you can view.

for going the ftp route

http://www.madskristensen.dk/blog/Si...d+In+C+20.aspx

Thanks for the link! How can I upload using http?