Smack/documentation/extensions/filetransfer.md

File Transfer
=============

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The file transfer extension allows the user to transmit and receive files.

  * Send a file to another user
  * Receiving a file from another user
  * Monitoring the progress of a file transfer

**XEP related:** [XEP-95](http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0095.html) [XEP-96](http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0096.html) [XEP-65](http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0065.html) [XEP-47](http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0047.html)

Send a file to another user
---------------------------

**Description**

A user may wish to send a file to another user. The other user has the option
of accepting, rejecting, or ignoring the users request. Smack provides a
simple interface in order to enable the user to easily send a file.

**Usage**

In order to send a file you must first construct an instance of the
**_FileTransferManager_** class. In order to instantiate the manager
you should call _FileTransferManager.getInstanceFor(connection)_, where connection is an XMPPConnection instance.

Once you have your **_FileTransferManager_** you will need to create an
outgoing file transfer to send a file. The method to use on the
**_FileTransferManager_** is the **createOutgoingFileTransfer(userID)**
method. The userID you provide to this method is the fully-qualified jabber ID
of the user you wish to send the file to. A fully-qualified jabber ID consists
of a node, a domain, and a resource. The user must be connected to the
resource in order to be able to receive the file transfer.

Now that you have your **_OutgoingFileTransfer_** instance you will want to
send the file. The method to send a file is **sendFile(file, description)**.
The file you provide to this method should be a readable file on the local
file system, and the description is a short description of the file to help
the user decide whether or not they would like to recieve the file.

For information on monitoring the progress of a file transfer see the
monitoring progress section of this document.

Other means to send a file are also provided as part of the
**_OutgoingFileTransfer_**. Please consult the Javadoc for more information.

**Examples**

In this example we can see how to send a file:

```
// Create the file transfer manager
FileTransferManager manager = FileTransferManager.getInstanceFor(connection);
// Create the outgoing file transfer
OutgoingFileTransfer transfer = manager.createOutgoingFileTransfer(entityFullJid);
// Send the file
transfer.sendFile(new File("shakespeare_complete_works.txt"), "You won't believe this!");
```

Receiving a file from another user
----------------------------------

**Description**

The user may wish to receive files from another user. The process of receiving
a file is event driven, new file transfer requests are received from other
users via a listener registered with the file transfer manager.

**Usage**

In order to receive a file you must first construct an instance of the
**_FileTransferManager_** class. This class has one static factory method with one
parameter which is your XMPPConnection. In order to instantiate the manager
you should call _FileTransferManager.getInstanceFor(connection)_.

Once you have your **_FileTransferManager_** you will need to register a
listener with it. The FileTransferListener interface has one method,
**fileTransferRequest(request)**. When a request is received through this
method, you can either accept or reject the request. To help you make your
decision there are several methods in the **_FileTransferRequest_** class that
return information about the transfer request.

To accept the file transfer, call the **accept()** method. This method will create an
**_IncomingFileTransfer_**. After you have the file transfer you may start to
transfer the file by calling the **recieveFile(file)** method. The file
provided to this method will be where the data from the file transfer is saved.

Finally, to reject the file transfer the only method you need to call is
**reject()** on the **_FileTransferRequest_**.

For information on monitoring the progress of a file transfer see the
monitoring progress section of this document.

Other means to receive a file are also provided as part of the
**_IncomingFileTransfer_**. Please consult the Javadoc for more information.

**Examples**

In this example we can see how to approve or reject a file transfer request:

```
// Create the file transfer manager
final FileTransferManager manager = FileTransferManager.getInstanceFor(connection);
// Create the listener
manager.addFileTransferListener(new FileTransferListener() {
	public void fileTransferRequest(FileTransferRequest request) {
	// Check to see if the request should be accepted
	if (shouldAccept(request)) {
		// Accept it
		IncomingFileTransfer transfer = request.accept();
		transfer.recieveFile(new File("shakespeare_complete_works.txt"));
	} else {
		// Reject it
		request.reject();
	}
}
});
```

Monitoring the progress of a file transfer
------------------------------------------

**Description**

While a file transfer is in progress you may wish to monitor the progress of a
file transfer.

**Usage**

Both the **_IncomingFileTransfer_** and the **_OutgoingFileTransfer_** extend
the **_FileTransfer_** class which provides several methods to monitor how a
file transfer is progressing:

  * **getStatus()** - The file transfer can be in several states, negotiating, rejected, cancelled, in progress, error, and complete. This method will return which state the file transfer is currently in. 
  * **getProgress()** - If the status of the file transfer is in progress this method will return a number between 0 and 1, 0 being the transfer has not yet started and 1 being the transfer is complete. It may also return a -1 if the transfer is not in progress. 
  * **isDone()** - Similar to getProgress() except it returns a _boolean_. If the state is rejected, canceled, error, or complete then true will be returned and false otherwise. 
  * **getError()** - If there is an error during the file transfer this method will return the type of error that occured.

  **Examples**

In this example we can see how to monitor a file transfer:

```
while(!transfer.isDone()) {
	if (transfer.getStatus().equals(Status.error)) {
		System.out.println("ERROR!!! " + transfer.getError());
	} else {
		System.out.println(transfer.getStatus());
		System.out.println(transfer.getProgress());
	}
	sleep(1000);
}
```