Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client - C# Discussion Boards

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

Luc Pattyn6-Dec-10 4:16

6-Dec-10 4:16

I had the same experience; my guess is the attachment files remain locked by the mail system until it is done sending them. Your code is not to blame for any of that. Solutions would be to create:
- an attachment from the file contents;
- an attachment form a stream, as you did;
- a copy of the file (leaving even more garbage on the file system).

Smile | :)

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Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

PIEBALDconsult6-Dec-10 4:26

PIEBALDconsult

6-Dec-10 4:26

Or don't delete the file -- archive it at a later date. You never know when you may need a paper trail to CYA. Or to resend for some reason.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan6-Dec-10 4:41

musefan

6-Dec-10 4:41

Files are created purely for sending to users. There is no need for keeping the file - besides generated files could end up frequent and many so want to keep the file system tidy

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

PIEBALDconsult6-Dec-10 4:58

PIEBALDconsult

6-Dec-10 4:58

musefan wrote:
Files are created purely for sending to users

Aren't they all?

musefan wrote:
There is no need for keeping the file

"There will be." -- Murphy

musefan wrote:
keep the file system tidy

Create them in a directory specifically for them.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan6-Dec-10 5:08

musefan

6-Dec-10 5:08

PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Aren't they all?

No, I have many files on my computer that are not required to go anywhere. In my service the files being sent are exports of data at regular intervals

PIEBALDconsult wrote:
"There will be." -- Murphy

If I ever need to keep them, then I will start keeping them. But I don't now and cannot think of what they would be useful for

PIEBALDconsult wrote:
Create them in a directory specifically for them.

That's still a folder full of files I don't need or want. Plus they are already generated in a nice file structure to keep them unique

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

PIEBALDconsult6-Dec-10 6:18

PIEBALDconsult

6-Dec-10 6:18

musefan wrote:
I will start keeping them

I see no reason not to keep them now. Do you need plausible deniability?

musefan wrote:
I don't now and cannot think of what they would be useful for

Mostly as a paper trail and for resending when someone's system crashes and is rebuilt. But also in case sometime down the road someone asks about comparing current numbers with numbers from a year earlier -- it happens, and if you aren't already archiving (and perhaps summarizing) data, all you have are files, reports, extracts... or maybe you don't.

Don't throw anything away.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan6-Dec-10 6:38

musefan

6-Dec-10 6:38

If I need to resend I can generate the files again. These files are just data exports from a database, there is no lost data by deleting the files as they already will exist in the DB which itself will be backed up and archived.

These files are for users and they can do whatever they wish to with them. It is there data to control.. and to look after. We are not providing a file storage system for them.

Like I have already said if it wasn't for an MDB file being generated I probably woudln't even let them out of memory. In that instance would you be telling my to dump my RAM and keep copies of that 'just incase' - if requirements changes, then they change, and it can be handled then

You also said to plan for the future - but what if we look at this from the flip side. What if these generated files becomes thousands a day, even a TB of data a day (bit extreme, but you never know) - now the question will be 'what good reason is there to keep the files?'

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

PIEBALDconsult6-Dec-10 7:25

PIEBALDconsult

6-Dec-10 7:25

musefan wrote:
a TB of data a day

::gibbering:: Well... maybe a very pro-active archive regimen and compression? OMG | :OMG:

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan6-Dec-10 4:28

musefan

6-Dec-10 4:28

Thanks for the reassurance. It would be nice if the was a function SendAndIWillWaitThankYou() but sadly not.

In this case I am happy to use a memory stream as I don't expect the generated files to be too large. I don't like the idea of loading in memory if they get too big so I may have to revisit this at some stage if they start growing

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

PIEBALDconsult6-Dec-10 4:42

PIEBALDconsult

6-Dec-10 4:42

musefan wrote:
SendAndIWillWaitThankYou()

The email server may not have an Internet connection... or only 56K... Sigh | :sigh:

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan6-Dec-10 4:55

musefan

6-Dec-10 4:55

My code is on a separate thread anyway, so I don't mind it waiting however long. Perhaps in conjunction with the Timeout property I would be happy to wait say (30 minutes) and then log a failure

In the event it wants to queue the attachment and return control to me, I would much prefer it to make its own copy of the file to be queued, and then it can be responsible for the clean up itself

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

Luc Pattyn6-Dec-10 5:00

Luc Pattyn

6-Dec-10 5:00

I'd rather have a DeleteWhenSent property, so I don't have to worry at all.

And I don't really want to receive e-mails that you consider too large for storing them in memory... Laugh | :laugh:

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, improve readability, and make me actually look at the code.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan6-Dec-10 5:12

musefan

6-Dec-10 5:12

Luc Pattyn wrote:
nd I don't really want to receive e-mails that you consider too large for storing them in memory

Yes. In this case it is a 'If you really want it' function. Users have the option for an FTP transfer of the same files if they would prefer (recommended)

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

PIEBALDconsult6-Dec-10 5:40

PIEBALDconsult

6-Dec-10 5:40

Luc Pattyn wrote:
I don't really want to receive e-mails that you consider too large

Neither do I, but you know those MBA-types and their love of Excel... Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

db7uk6-Dec-10 23:16

db7uk

6-Dec-10 23:16

Hiya,

For me I found that disposing the client and or message releases the file lock.

Also, there is a problem sending emails over 4mb in size (this is if you do not know about it).

I would use the following: Net.Mail.Attachment.TransferEncoding = System.Net.Mime.TransferEncoding.SevenBit

kind regards
Dan

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

Richard Deeming7-Dec-10 8:36

Richard Deeming

7-Dec-10 8:36

Agreed - the file remains locked until the Attachment instance is disposed. Calling Dispose on the MailMessage instance disposes of all attachments for the message.

// MailMessage:
protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
    if (disposing && !this.disposed)
    {
        this.disposed = true;
        if (this.views != null)
        {
            this.views.Dispose();
        }
        if (this.attachments != null)
        {
            this.attachments.Dispose();
        }
        if (this.bodyView != null)
        {
            this.bodyView.Dispose();
        }
    }
}

// AttachmentCollection:
public void Dispose()
{
    if (!this.disposed)
    {
        foreach (Attachment attachment in this)
        {
            attachment.Dispose();
        }
        base.Clear();
        this.disposed = true;
    }
}

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

englebart7-Dec-10 4:06

englebart

7-Dec-10 4:06

Did you try using your second approach, but with a FileInputStream (or whatever the dotNet equivalent is)?

Just change

Stream stream = new MemoryStream(File.ReadAllBytes(filename));

to

Stream stream = new FileInputStream(filename);

and retain the cleanup loop at the bottom.

This avoids the memory stream.

Re: Sending attachments with SMTP Client

musefan7-Dec-10 4:26

musefan

7-Dec-10 4:26

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't have time to test that at the minute but I have put a TODO so will give it a go at some point Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Life goes very fast. Tomorrow, today is already yesterday.

Is C# compiler multi-core aware?

Frank W. Wu6-Dec-10 2:54

Frank W. Wu

6-Dec-10 2:54

The C# 4.0 compiler is slow on my 4-core laptop. I noticed only one core is busy when compiling. Is C# compiler multi-core aware?

Re: Is C# compiler multi-core aware?

Luc Pattyn6-Dec-10 3:37

Luc Pattyn

6-Dec-10 3:37

AFAIK it is not. However you may be interested in this[^]. I haven't tried it yet.

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, improve readability, and make me actually look at the code.

Re: Is C# compiler multi-core aware?

Daniel Ruehmer20-Oct-11 23:39

Daniel Ruehmer

20-Oct-11 23:39

Sorry, but the link is for C++ not C#...

Daniel Rühmer
Application engineer for Measurement Software

Re: Is C# compiler multi-core aware?

Luc Pattyn21-Oct-11 1:48

Luc Pattyn

21-Oct-11 1:48

sorry, my mistake.

Blush | :O

Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

Re: Is C# compiler multi-core aware?

Richard Deeming7-Dec-10 8:41

Richard Deeming

7-Dec-10 8:41

Scott Hanselman posted a hack for this a couple of years back.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/HackParallelMSBuildsFromWithinTheVisualStudioIDE.aspx[^]

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

email from windows service

arkiboys6-Dec-10 0:20

arkiboys

6-Dec-10 0:20

I am writting a windows service in .net 4.0 for monitoring purposeson regular intervals.
How is it possible to send an email from within this windows service please?
Thanks

Re: email from windows service

Pete O'Hanlon6-Dec-10 0:27

Pete O'Hanlon

6-Dec-10 0:27

You could always try the SmtpClient[^] class.

I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be

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