CODEWITHSUNDEEP
swifturlservernsurlsessionremote-server
STerrier
STerrier

Reputation: 4015

Swift - Grab all the files from a specific folder/remote URL on a server

I am trying to access a specific folder in a remote URL e.g.http://dev.servertest.com/sessions/id/video

from there, I want to grab all the videos from the folder and download them to the device.

I know how to download the videos from a remote URL to the directory but I can't work out to grab all the videos from the specific video folder.

Also, the server may change depending on the user using their own server but the rest of the structure should be the same "/sessions/id/video"

Below is the code I use to upload from a specific folder "ImportVideos" from my app directory if that helps.

func loadVideos(){


    let fm = FileManager.default
    let dirPaths = fm.urls(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask)
    let documentsPath = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(.documentDirectory, .userDomainMask, true)[0];

    do {
        let videoList = try fm.contentsOfDirectory(atPath: "\(documentsPath + "/ImportVideo")")

        for filename in videoList {
            videoSubtitles.append(filename) //this is used to populate my tableview
        }
    } catch let error {
        print("error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
    }
}

If someone could point me in the right direction that would be great. Thanks.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1635

Answers (1)

dgatwood
dgatwood

Reputation: 10407

The HTTP protocol does not provide any means of getting a list of files in a directory. What you're trying to do is not generally possible without a manifest — a list of files that you want to download.

The easiest way to do that is to run a script on the server, e.g.

#!/bin/sh
FILES_DIR=/path/to/directory/on/server
cd "$FILES_DIR"
ls > allfiles.txt

Then have your app fetch the file http://example.com/path/to/allfiles.txt, then split it by newline, and fetch each file. This approach also provides the advantage of letting you later replace that text file with a script handler that serves different file lists to different clients, if desired, e.g. for supporting different versions of your app.

Alternatively, if your server supports WebDAV, then it is possible to configure the directory with WebDAV enabled and use a WebDAV library to find out what files are in the directory. However, this is probably not a good idea, because WebDAV is relatively complex and easy to misconfigure.

Finally, some web servers provide a way to enable "directory listings" — a web page that has links to all of the files in the directory. (Many people will tell you that this is a bad idea from a security perspective, though that is debatable.) It is possible, though inherently fragile, to parse such a page and extract the links. This approach is strongly discouraged, however, because it could break completely when you update to a new version of the web server software.

Upvotes: 3

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