Problem Uploading a file via FTP using FtpWebRequest when the file does not already exist on FTP server

This seems like a trivial problem, but my web searches for an answer (even on this site) have forced me to ask the question explicitly.

I am uploading a file via FTP from my server to a remote server. My code looks like this...

public void Upload(string fileToUpload)
    {
        // Get the object used to communicate with the server.
        FtpWebRequest request = (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("ftp://www.remoteserver.com/Data/" + fileToUpload);
        request.UsePassive = false;
        request.UseBinary = true;
        request.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.UploadFile;
        request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential ("username","password");

        // Copy the contents of the file to the request stream.
        StreamReader sourceStream = new StreamReader(fileToUpload);
        byte [] fileContents = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(sourceStream.ReadToEn开发者_如何学Cd());
        sourceStream.Close();
        request.ContentLength = fileContents.Length;

        Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream();
        requestStream.Write(fileContents, 0, fileContents.Length);
        requestStream.Close();

        FtpWebResponse response = (FtpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

        Console.WriteLine("Upload File Complete, status {0}", response.StatusDescription);

        response.Close();
    }

This all seems very straight-forward. The problem I am having is that I get a 550 error when the file does not already exist on the remote server. I would assume that if the file doe snot exist, then the file would be created. Further, I assume that if it does that it will be overwritten.

Since this is not the case (at least with writing a new file), I would further assume that I should (a) somehow check for the file first, and (b) create it if it does not exist. But how to do this?

Thanks,

Mike

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(comment converted to answer)

What are you passing into fileToUpload, an absolute file path such as c:\File.txt or just a filename like File.txt? Also, do you understand that your program only works with text files, right?