hierarchical namespace similar to a file system and CloudBlobContainer class inconsistency

[tugberkugurlu]

When I create a hierarchical namespace similar to a file system and try to retrieve it with the CloudBlobContainer class, IListBlobItem.Uri comes back incorrectly. Here is a sample:

In my container, I have a file named album/foo.jpg. I try to list the blobs under my container with the following code:

  // Retrieve a reference to a container 
  CloudBlobContainer blobContainer =
      _myBlobStorageService.GetCloudBlobContainer();

  List<string> blobs = new List<string>();

  // Loop over blobs within the container and output the URI to each of them
  foreach (var blobItem in blobContainer.ListBlobs())
      blobs.Add(blobItem.Uri.ToString());

It returns the Uri property of all the blobs correctly if they don't have "/". In this case Uri comes back as http://mystorage.table.core.windows.net/mycontainer/album/ but it should be http://mystorage.table.core.windows.net/mycontainer/album/foo.jpg.

NOTE:

Probably has nothing to do with this but _myBlobStorageService code is as bellow:

    public CloudBlobContainer GetCloudBlobContainer() {

        // Retrieve storage account from connection-string
        CloudStorageAccount storageAccount = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(
                RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("StorageString")
            );

        // Create the blob client 
        CloudBlobClient blobClient = storageAccount.CreateCloudBlobClient();

        // Retrieve a reference to a container 
        CloudBlobContainer blobContainer = blobClient.GetContainerReference("dummy");

        return blobContainer;
    }

[joeg]

Sorry for the late reply,

This is expected, If you look at the type of the object that returns "http://mystorage.table.core.windows.net/mycontainer/album/" as its uri it is a CloudBlobDirectory which is the client side construct provided to emulate hierarchical storage. By default the ListBlobs method will send a delimiter (default is "/", but this is configurabel on the service client) to the server meaning that all entries that contain that delimiter will be reduced to a BlobPrefix entry in the response which will in turn appear to the client as a CloudBlobDirectory. To see this in action alter your listing logic like this:

foreach (var obj in temp2.ListBlobs())
{
Console.WriteLine(obj.Uri);
Console.WriteLine(obj.GetType().ToString());
}

This is the reason why ListBlobs returns IListBlobItems instead of Blobs themselves as it could be a BlockBlob, PageBlob, or CloudBlobDirectory.

If you want to get a full listing regardless of delimiter specify FlatBlobListing = true. In 1.6 this is in the BlobRequestOptions. => container.ListBlobs(new BlobRequestOptions() { UseFlatBlobListing = true });

joe

[deepakverma]

tugberkugurlu does joeg's comment above help to resolve your issue? Can you please close it if it does. Thanks.