Programmatically make web requests against an HTTP server using HttpWebRequest class

Hi,

Many a times comes a situation, where we have to make call/request to another page through http protocol. The requirement might come when you want to fetch data from another page through http protocol, or just make a request to start some process which gets started on the page request itself.

For this kind of requirement we have the HttpWebRequest class in the System.Net namespace. The HttpWebRequest class provides support for the properties and methods defined in WebRequest and for additional properties and methods that enable the user to interact directly with servers using HTTP. Remember, for security reasons, cookies are disabled by default. If you want to use cookies, use the CookieContainer property to enable cookies.

Below is a small code snippet on how to use the class to request fro a page.

string strIcrawlURL = @"URLOfThePage";

WebRequest mObjWebRequest = null;

WebResponse mObjWebResponse = null;

Stream mObjReceiveStream = null;

string strResponse = string.Empty;

try

{

mObjWebRequest = WebRequest.Create(strIcrawlURL);

// Use the default credential for accessing the page

mObjWebRequest.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

// Send the 'WebRequest' and wait for response.

mObjWebResponse = mObjWebRequest.GetResponse();

// Obtain a 'Stream' object associated with the response object.

mObjReceiveStream = mObjWebResponse.GetResponseStream();

// Pipe the stream to a higher level stream reader with the required encoding format.

StreamReader readStream = new StreamReader(mObjReceiveStream, System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8"));

strResponse = readStream.ReadToEnd();

readStream.Close();

//// Release the resources of response object.

mObjWebResponse.Close();            

}

catch (Exception ex)

{
// Do something here for exception raised if any

}

finally

{

mObjWebRequest = null;

mObjWebResponse = null;

mObjReceiveStream = null;

}           

Vikram