How do you download a file?

Right I apologize if this has been asked before, but I need to find an answer as I start my major college project in a few weeks.

Right, I am planning on making a program that will let the user search through a database then download files that are related to their search. I need to be able to do two things.

1) Acces a file and download it. Whilst it downloads I need it to report the progress to the progress bar.
2) Depending on where I keep the database (online or locally) I will need the program to automaticaly download new database updates. This one is optional because like I said it depends on if I put the database online or bundle it with the program.

I appreciate any help or links to tutorials :)

Many thanks in advance, Jake.

To begin with, you need to read about HttpWebRequest and FtpWebRequest (in .NET 2.0 only).

OK, I have found methods of downloading using those, I got the HTTpWebRequest one working, but what I am struggling with now is how to implement a progress ba with that.

Any suggestions?

Try this, I think I found it at in an article at http://www.c-sharpcorner.com but not sure about the exact link (Thanks to the original author).

VB Code:

Private Sub DownloadFile(byval filetoDownload) 
    Dim req As HttpWebRequest
    Dim wc As WebClient
    Dim client As WebClient 
    Dim data As Stream 
    Dim reader As StreamReader 
    Dim wProxy As WebProxy
    Dim str As String = ""
    
    Try
      client = New WebClient
 
 
      Dim URL As String = filetoDownload  ' e.g http://www.abc.com/file.txt"
 
      
      data = client.OpenRead(URL)
            
 
      reader = New StreamReader(data)
      
      dim allData as String
      allData = reader.ReadToEnd())
      ' add  necessary code to write this string to a file
 
    Catch ex As Exception
      MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString())
    End Try
  End Sub

This is what I use.

WebAddress = "http://www.abc.com/file.txt"

VB Code:

Private Function DownloadFile(ByVal WebAddress As String) As String
        Dim webfile As New WebClient
        Dim URL As String = String.Empty
 
        Try
            strDoc = WebAddress.Substring(WebAddress.LastIndexOf("/"c) + 1)
            If File.Exists(strDoc) = False Then
                URL = WebAddress.Trim
                webfile.DownloadFile(URL, strDoc)
            End If
            DownloadFile = ""
        Catch ex As Exception
            DownloadFile = ex.Message
        Finally
            webfile.Dispose()
        End Try
    End Function

Yep, Zombie_man23's solution is the right one if you're using VB.NET 2005. Mine was written for VB.NET 2003.

I Need to download a file from the sites which ask for userid and password
i have the user & password how can i pass the same

If you are using 2005 I think you can use this putting in the information as you need it:

vb Code:

My.Computer.Network.DownloadFile("address", "destination", "userName Here", "Password Here")

Although there must be a way of doing it with the WebClient as well. Have you checked out the webClient documentation on MSDN to find the answer??

look at my signature for example code on download a file with progress bar ;)