Getting started with sensenet and the .Net Core client

In this tutorial we will export a folder structure containing subfolders and files to the file system, using the .Net Client library for sensenet.

You'll find the full source code at the end of this article.

Create a new console application

Create a new .Net Core console application either in command line (dotnet new), Visual Studio or VS Code.

Install the following NuGet package:

SenseNet.Client

Add the following namespace registration to the beginning of your Program.cs file:

using SenseNet.Client;

Set up the connection to the sensenet service

Create a server object and provide your sensenet service url.

If you do not have a repository yet, please head over to [www.sensenet.com](https://www.sensenet.com) to get one.

static async Task Main(string[] args)
{
    // define sensenet service url
    var server = new ServerContext
    {
        Url = "https://example.sensenet.cloud"
    };
    ClientContext.Current.AddServer(server);
}

Important: In this tutorial we assume that all the content items you are working with are public (accessible for visitors). You can make content (for example files or whole folders) public on the admin UI: on the Set permissions page hit the Make content public button.

To access private content, please check out how to add authentication to your client application.

Load and iterate through a content collection

First we want to load all child items in an existing folder.

var children = await Content.LoadCollectionAsync(repositoryPath);

Iterate through the collection. Please note that here we treat child items as dynamic objects. This makes accessing properties easier and simpler.

foreach (dynamic child in children)
{
    var contentType = (string) child.Type;
    // If child is a file: save it to the file system.
    // If it is a folder, iterate through its children recursively.
}

Save files to the file system

The following code fragment shows the easiest way to save binary streams from the repository to the file system.

using var fs = File.OpenWrite(localPath);
await RESTCaller.GetStreamResponseAsync((int) child.Id, message =>
{
    // save file (currently this has to be synchronous)
    message.Content.CopyToAsync(fs).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
}, CancellationToken.None);

Put it all together

We assembled all the fragments above to a separate method that can be called recursively on subfolders. This is how the whole source code looks like.

If you execute it, it will export folders and files from the /Root/Content/Folder container from the repository to the C:\temp\export folder in the file system.

class Program
{
    static async Task Main(string[] args)
    {
        // define sensenet service url
        var server = new ServerContext
        {
            Url = "https://example.sensenet.cloud"
        };
        ClientContext.Current.AddServer(server);
        await ExportFolderAsync("/Root/Content/Folder", "C:\\temp\\export");
    }
    private static async Task ExportFolderAsync(string repositoryPath, string targetPath)
    {
        var children = await Content.LoadCollectionAsync(repositoryPath);
        foreach (dynamic child in children)
        {
            var contentType = (string) child.Type;
            var localPath = Path.Combine(targetPath, child.Name);
            switch (contentType)
            {
                case "Folder":
                {
                    // create folder in file system
                    Directory.CreateDirectory(localPath);
                    // export subfolders recursively
                    await ExportFolderAsync((string) child.Path, localPath);
                    break;
                }
                case "File":
                {
                    // export file
                    using var fs = File.OpenWrite(localPath);
                    await RESTCaller.GetStreamResponseAsync((int) child.Id, message =>
                    {
                        // save file (currently this has to be synchronous)
                        message.Content.CopyToAsync(fs).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
                    }, CancellationToken.None);
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}