Creating a folder using Azure Storage Rest API without creating a default blob file

Question

I want to create following folder structure on Azure:

mycontainer
   -images
       --2007
           ---img001.jpg
           ---img002.jpg

Now, one way is to use PUT Blob request and upload img001.jpg specifying the whole path as

PUT "mycontainer/images/2007/img001.jpg"

But, I want to first create the folders images and 2007 and then in a different request upload the blob img001.jpg.

Right now when I tried to doing this using PUT BLOB request:

StringToSign:

PUT











x-ms-blob-type:BlockBlob
x-ms-date:Tue, 07 Feb 2017 23:35:12 GMT
x-ms-version:2016-05-31
/account/mycontainer/images/

HTTP URL

sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection:http://account.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/images/

It is creating a folder but its not empty. By, default its creating an empty blob file without name.

Now, a lot of people say we can't create a empty folder. But, then how come, we can make it using the azure portal as the browser must be sending some type of rest request to create the folder.

I think it has to do something with Content-Type i.e. x-ms-blob-content-type, which should be specified in order to tell azure that its a folder not a blob. But, I am confused.

Brendan Green Brendan Green · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-08T04:23:46

This is not possible - the folder structure is virtual only.

See Get started with Azure Blob storage using .NET. You can only create a container, and everything else held in that container is a blob.

Excerpt:

As shown above, you can name blobs with path information in their names. This creates a virtual directory structure that you can organize and traverse as you would a traditional file system. Note that the directory structure is virtual only - the only resources available in Blob storage are containers and blobs.

Creating a folder using Azure Storage Rest API without creating a default blob file

2 Answers