HttpWebRequest example with error handling (C#)

This C# example explains how to GET or POST a request to a web server using the .NET framework classes HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse. The code is embedded in a command line example program, where a specified URL is requested using the HTTP method "GET", and the response is written to a specified file.

To use the code for example on an aspx page, just cut out the WRequest() function and catch the return string. A VB.Net version of the function is also available.

The WRequest() parameters are: URL, HTTP_method, POST_data

URL: Any valid URL.
HTTP_method: Use "GET" to make a normal request or "POST" to submit additional (form) data along with the request.
POST_data: An empty string if HTTP_method "GET" is used, a string of POST data if HTTP_method "POST" is used. The format is "param1=value1&param2=value2"

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using System.Text;

public class HttpWebRequestTool
{
  public static void Main(String[] args)
  {
    if (args.Length < 2)
    {
      Console.WriteLine("Missing argument. Need a URL and a filename");
    }
    else
    {
      StreamWriter sWriter = new StreamWriter(args[1]);
      sWriter.Write(WRequest(args[0], "GET", ""));
      sWriter.Close();
    }
  }

  public static string WRequest(string URL, string method, string postData)
  {
    string responseData = "";
    try
    {
      System.Net.CookieContainer cookieJar = new System.Net.CookieContainer();
      System.Net.HttpWebRequest hwrequest =
        (System.Net.HttpWebRequest) System.Net.WebRequest.Create(URL);
      hwrequest.CookieContainer = cookieJar;
      hwrequest.Accept = "*/*";
      hwrequest.AllowAutoRedirect = true;
      hwrequest.UserAgent = "http_requester/0.1";
      hwrequest.Timeout= 60000;
      hwrequest.Method = method;
      if (hwrequest.Method == "POST")
      {
        hwrequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
        // Use UTF8Encoding instead of ASCIIEncoding for XML requests:
        System.Text.ASCIIEncoding encoding = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding();
        byte[] postByteArray = encoding.GetBytes(postData);
        hwrequest.ContentLength = postByteArray.Length;
        System.IO.Stream postStream = hwrequest.GetRequestStream();
        postStream.Write(postByteArray, 0, postByteArray.Length);
        postStream.Close();
      }
      System.Net.HttpWebResponse hwresponse =
        (System.Net.HttpWebResponse) hwrequest.GetResponse();
      if (hwresponse.StatusCode == System.Net.HttpStatusCode.OK)
      {
        System.IO.Stream responseStream = hwresponse.GetResponseStream();
        System.IO.StreamReader myStreamReader =
          new System.IO.StreamReader(responseStream);
        responseData = myStreamReader.ReadToEnd();
      }
      hwresponse.Close();
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
      responseData = "An error occurred: " + e.Message;
    }
    return responseData;
  }
}

Use the following command (from a folder containing the source file) to compile the program:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe /out:HttpWebThingie.exe HttpWebThingie.cs

Note: The path to the .NET framework compiler may not be exactly like above on all systems.

Tags: dotnet, utilities