What is the best way to store temporary files on Azure?

Question

I am using the Google dot net api to import events from a google calendar.  In order to do the google authorization, it normally uses code like this: 
private static readonly IAuthorizationCodeFlow flow =
new GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow(new GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow.Initializer
ClientSecrets = new ClientSecrets
ClientId = "...........",
ClientSecret = "............"
Scopes = new[] { DriveService.Scope.Drive },
DataStore = new FileDataStore("Calendar.Api.Auth.Store")
However, the FileDataStore tries to save the auth data locally which doesn't work on Azure.  So, I created my own data store that uses blob storage on Azure.  However, it creates a new file in blob storage every time it is accessed, so I have a ton
of these temporary files.  I can make a utility to go through and delete these every now and again, but is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

Hi,
The best thing is that each blob has a property which indicate when the particular blob was last modified.
This value can tell you how old this blob is. And using this value you can select older blobs and delete them.
You will have to delete them one by one or you can run the code in loop to select all the blobs and delete them.
For example you can choose to delete blobs which are older then a week or two weeks or a month. So you can choose what blob selection criteria you will use to select the blobs and then delete them.
CloudBlobClient blobClient = connectionManager.GetBlobServiceClient(storageUri);
// Next lets select then container which you are looking for your old blobs.
CloudBlobContainer container = blobClient.GetContainerReference(this.WadBlobContainerName);
// Now we will select blob query object which will give us the list of selected filtered blobs
BlobRequestOptions blobQuery = new BlobRequestOptions();
blobQuery.BlobListingDetails = BlobListingDetails.None;
blobQuery.UseFlatBlobListing = true;
// Now we will setup Blob access condition option which will filter all the blobs which are not modified for X (this.DaysToKeep) amount of days
blobQuery.AccessCondition = AccessCondition.IfNotModifiedSince(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1 * this.DaysToKeep));
// Lets Query to do its job
IEnumerable<IListBlobItem> blobs = container.ListBlobs(blobQuery);
foreach (IListBlobItem blob in blobs)
CloudBlob cloudBlob = container.GetBlobReference(blob.Uri.ToString());
cloudBlob.DeleteIfExists(blobQuery);