Invalid character exception when adding Metadata to a CloudBlob

Question

Task

Upload a file to Azure Blob Storage with the original filename and also assign the filename as meta-data to the CloudBlob

Answer 1

To expand on the answer by bPratik, we've found that Base64 encoding metadata works nicely. We use this extension method to do the encode and decode:

    public static class Base64Extensions
    {
        public static string ToBase64(this string input)
        {
            var bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(input);
            return Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
        }

        public static string FromBase64(this string input)
        {
            var bytes = Convert.FromBase64String(input);
            return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);
        }
    }

and then when setting blob metadata:

blobReference.Metadata["Filename"] = filename.ToBase64();

and when retrieving it:

var filename = blobReference.Metadata["Filename"].FromBase64();

For search, you would have to decode the filename before presenting it to the indexer, or use the blob's actual filename assuming you're still using the original filename there.