How do I set a cookie on HttpClient's HttpRequestMessage

Solution 1:

Here's how you could set a custom cookie value for the request:

var baseAddress = new Uri("http://example.com");
var cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
using (var handler = new HttpClientHandler() { CookieContainer = cookieContainer })
using (var client = new HttpClient(handler) { BaseAddress = baseAddress })
{
    var content = new FormUrlEncodedContent(new[]
    {
        new KeyValuePair<string, string>("foo", "bar"),
        new KeyValuePair<string, string>("baz", "bazinga"),
    });
    cookieContainer.Add(baseAddress, new Cookie("CookieName", "cookie_value"));
    var result = await client.PostAsync("/test", content);
    result.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
}

Solution 2:

The accepted answer is the correct way to do this in most cases. However, there are some situations where you want to set the cookie header manually. Normally if you set a "Cookie" header it is ignored, but that's because HttpClientHandler defaults to using its CookieContainer property for cookies. If you disable that then by setting UseCookies to false you can set cookie headers manually and they will appear in the request, e.g.

var baseAddress = new Uri("http://example.com");
using (var handler = new HttpClientHandler { UseCookies = false })
using (var client = new HttpClient(handler) { BaseAddress = baseAddress })
{
    var message = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "/test");
    message.Headers.Add("Cookie", "cookie1=value1; cookie2=value2");
    var result = await client.SendAsync(message);
    result.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
}