resuming files when uploading to a server using wcf - wcf

Question

I'm using WCF and I am trying to resume my upload with next code on the server app:
class DataUploader : IDataUploader
{
public void Upload(UploadMessage msg)
{
int speed = msg.AvgSpeed * 1024; // convert to KB
Stream stream= msg.DataStream;
string name = msg.VirtualPath;
int seekPoint; // this is get reading the partial uploaded file
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(#"C:\savedfile.dat, FileMode.Append))
{
int bufferSize = 4 * 1024; // 4KB buffer
byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize];
int bytes;
while ((bytes = stream.Read(buffer, startPoint, bufferSize)) > 0)
{
fs.Write(buffer, 0, bytes);
fs.Flush();
}
stream.Close();
fs.Close();
}
}
}
I'm trying to begin to read the stream from a specified point (startPoint) cause the first bytes have already been uploaded. So I could append only remaining bytes to the file partially uploaded. By this way i get an error with the buffersize and can't use seeking because a method not supported exception so I think maybe this approach is not right. Help!!
My service contract:
[ServiceContract]
interface IDataUploader
{
[OperationContract]
void Upload(UploadMessage msg);
}
My message contract:
[MessageContract]
public class UploadMessage
{
[MessageHeader(MustUnderstand = true)]
public string VirtualPath { get; set; }
[MessageHeader(MustUnderstand = true)]
public int AvgSpeed { get; set; }
[MessageBodyMember(Order = 1)]
public Stream DataStream { get; set; }
}

Answer 1

It seems like you are using a standard soap message rather than the streaming binding. Check out the this link
If you don't want to use WCF's streaming api, which is proprietary to WCF, I would considering creating a 'chunking' method from the client if the client is uploading the file. Similar to how FTP can resume, I would query the server to see the current offset, send up a block or set of blocks, write them to my persistance (memory, db, file, etc), and then continue with multiple calls from the client sending smaller blocks (be careful of serialization as that can introduce unnecessary delays). This technique be something you want to investigate since it sounds like the client is 'streaming' to the server.
Btw, you may want to look at the following article to determine if your use of MessageContract is appropriate, as opposed to a DataContract.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/drnick/archive/2007/07/25/data-contract-and-message-contract.aspx

Answer 2

If you want resume functionality you cannot do it this way. Your client must send the file in chunks and it must maintain the id of last successfully updated chunk. The service must process chunks and append them to storage.
If the most basic implementation it means that your client must divide file into chunks of well known size and call the upload operation for each chunk. The message must also contains the chunk Id and probably also chunk size (or something identifying the last chunk). This can be also combined with reliable session to allow automatic resend of lost chunks and to enforce in order delivery.
There is also example of channel implementation which does chunking internally.