Converting Script to Code Based on .NET Assembly

Start by choosing a language. WinSCP .NET assembly can be used from any .NET language or any language that supports COM.

If you do not have your own preferred language, use Windows PowerShell. PowerShell is scripting language built on top of .NET framework. It comes with Windows 7 and newer and can be installed into Windows XP and Vista. PowerShell scripts can be directly executed, they do not need to be compiled first. See example PowerShell script that uses WinSCP .NET assembly.

Most script commands can be directly mapped to their equivalent .NET assembly method calls. The mapping is described in respective scripting command documentation page.

There are some conceptual differences though. These are discussed in following sections.

Scripts run in an interactive mode by default (option batch off). There’s no equivalent for this in .NET assembly, which always run in batch mode. It is near equivalent to option batch abort in scripting mode, what is recommended setting, as used in most scripting examples. Read mode about capturing errors in .NET assembly.

Scripting mode by default shares configuration with graphical mode. On the contrary the .NET assembly is by default isolated from graphical mode configuration (equivalent to using /ini=nul command-line parameter in scripting mode).

It means that you cannot use sites/stored sessions, when opening session with .NET assembly. You need to configure all your session settings directly in your code (using SessionOptions class).

It also means that with .NET assembly, you always start with default transfer settings, default resume/endurance settings, etc.

Alternatively, you can force the .NET assembly to share configuration with graphical/scripting mode, by setting Session.DefaultConfiguration to false. Though this is not recommended practise.

Scripting mode (similarly to graphical mode) has concept of current working directory (both on local and remote side). On the contrary, the .NET assembly does not; there’s no equivalent to cd command.

In the scripting you can use paths relative to current working directory in parameters to script commands. In the .NET assembly, you need to always use absolute paths.

For example following script snippet:

cd /home/martinp
lcd d:\
get test.txt

needs to be converted to following call:

$session.GetFiles("/home/martinp/test.txt", "d:\")