Programmatically move a document in a library to another site collection

Question

I need to create an ItemUpdated event reciever on a documnt library that will detect when particular metadata value is updated on a document and move the document to a library in another site collection.

How can I programmatically move a document to a library in a different site collection? All of the other questions I can find on this site deal with moving the document to another library in the same site collection, and i know that SPFile.MoveTo() can be used for that but i need to move it to another site collection. It must be possible because it can be done through the SendTo link on the front-end.

Any ideas? TIA

Answer 1

There's probably a few ways to do this. But the option I use is to actually read in the bytes of the source file and then write as a new file to the destination. Once you're happy the file is successfully copied, delete the source.

This can get a bit complex though if you want to maintain meta data and version history, but it's still doable.

Here's a simple example of just copying the file, without meta data or version history:

    Uri srcUrl = new Uri(@"http://sample.com/sitecol1/Pages/Home.aspx");
    Uri dstFolderUrl = new Uri(@"http://sample.com/sitecol2/Documents/");
    Uri dstFileUrl = new Uri(dstFolderUrl, Path.GetFileName(srcUrl.LocalPath));

    using (SPSite siteSrc = new SPSite(srcUrl.AbsoluteUri))
    using (SPSite siteDst = new SPSite(dstFolderUrl.AbsoluteUri))
    using (SPWeb webSrc = siteSrc.OpenWeb())
    using (SPWeb webDst = siteDst.OpenWeb())
    {
        SPFile srcFile = webSrc.GetFile(srcUrl.AbsolutePath);
        SPFolder dstFolder = webDst.GetFolder(dstFolderUrl.AbsolutePath);
        SPFile newFile = dstFolder.Files.Add(dstFileUrl.AbsolutePath, srcFile.OpenBinary());
        //Optional : Check-in
        newFile.CheckIn("", SPCheckinType.MajorCheckIn);
    }

Answer 2

Since you're on 2010, you can take advantage of the content organizer to automatically route documents based on metadata or content type.

Answer 3

Most of the upload code uses CopyTo() method, but progmatically uploaded (or we should say copied) documents will not be routed immediately. It will wait for content organizer timer job to run, which is weekly by default or may be daily. There is a better way by using OfficialFileSubmit() method which uploads files and trigger routing rules straightaway.

Uploading Documents Programatically to a Content Organizer Enabled Site