How to send a Post body in the HttpClient request in Windows Phone 8?
I have written the code below to send headers, post parameters. The problem is that I am using SendAsync since my request can be GET or POST. How can I add POST Body to this peice of code so that if there is any post body data it gets added in the request that I make and if its simple GET or POST without body it send the request that way. Please update the code below:
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
// Add a new Request Message
HttpRequestMessage requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(RequestHTTPMethod, ToString());
// Add our custom headers
if (RequestHeader != null)
{
foreach (var item in RequestHeader)
{
requestMessage.Headers.Add(item.Key, item.Value);
}
}
// Add request body
// Send the request to the server
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.SendAsync(requestMessage);
// Get the response
responseString = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
UPDATE 2:
From @Craig Brown:
As of .NET 5 you can do:
requestMessage.Content = JsonContent.Create(new { Name = "John Doe", Age = 33 });
See JsonContent class documentation
UPDATE 1:
Oh, it can be even nicer (from this answer):
requestMessage.Content = new StringContent("{\"name\":\"John Doe\",\"age\":33}", Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
This depends on what content do you have. You need to initialize your requestMessage.Content
property with new HttpContent. For example:
...
// Add request body
if (isPostRequest)
{
requestMessage.Content = new ByteArrayContent(content);
}
...
where content
is your encoded content. You also should include correct Content-type header.
I implemented it in the following way. I wanted a generic MakeRequest
method that could call my API and receive content for the body of the request - and also deserialise the response into the desired type. I create a Dictionary<string, string>
object to house the content to be submitted, and then set the HttpRequestMessage
Content
property with it:
Generic method to call the API:
private static T MakeRequest<T>(string httpMethod, string route, Dictionary<string, string> postParams = null)
{
using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
HttpRequestMessage requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(new HttpMethod(httpMethod), $"{_apiBaseUri}/{route}");
if (postParams != null)
requestMessage.Content = new FormUrlEncodedContent(postParams); // This is where your content gets added to the request body
HttpResponseMessage response = client.SendAsync(requestMessage).Result;
string apiResponse = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
try
{
// Attempt to deserialise the reponse to the desired type, otherwise throw an expetion with the response from the api.
if (apiResponse != "")
return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(apiResponse);
else
throw new Exception();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception($"An error ocurred while calling the API. It responded with the following message: {response.StatusCode} {response.ReasonPhrase}");
}
}
}
Call the method:
public static CardInformation ValidateCard(string cardNumber, string country = "CAN")
{
// Here you create your parameters to be added to the request content
var postParams = new Dictionary<string, string> { { "cardNumber", cardNumber }, { "country", country } };
// make a POST request to the "cards" endpoint and pass in the parameters
return MakeRequest<CardInformation>("POST", "cards", postParams);
}