Use HTTPRequest/HTTPResponse to browse WEB pages

• Download Demo Project - 13 Kb

Introduction

This article is about demonstrating how to simulate a browser request to any web page.

Can be used:

1. When we want to get the content of a web page, the HTML content automatically like when developing a web crawler or something like this.

2. When we want a certain service which will accept parameters and return information in return.

The code below should be used with ASP pages.

The ASP page will receive 2 form parameters using the POST method and return information in return.

Getting Started

Create a .NET Web Project called DEMO ( or anything else ).
Visual Studio will create the WebForm.aspx file automatically.

In the code behind section, under Page_Load event you can check the Request.Form collection and us Response.Write to write back information to requesting client.

Additional explanation is documented in the code segment.

Good luck.

using System;

using System.Net;

using System.IO;

using System.Text;

namespace HttpRequest

{

      /// <summary>

      /// Summary description for Class1.

      /// </summary>

      class Class1

      {

            /// <summary>

            /// The main entry point for the application.

            /// </summary>

            [STAThread]

            static void Main(string[] args)

            {

                  string param1 = "value1";

                  string param2 = "value2";

                  ASCIIEncoding encoding = new ASCIIEncoding();

                  string postData = string.Format("param1={0}&param2={1}", param1, param2 );

                  byte[]  buffer = encoding.GetBytes( postData );

                  // Prepare web request...

                  HttpWebRequest myRequest =

                        (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://localhost/DEMO/WebForm1.aspx");

                  // We use POST ( we can also use GET )

                  myRequest.Method = "POST";

                  // Set the content type to a FORM

                  myRequest.ContentType ="application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

                  // Get length of content

                  myRequest.ContentLength = buffer.Length;

                  // Get request stream

                  Stream newStream = myRequest.GetRequestStream();

                  // Send the data.

                  newStream.Write(buffer,0,buffer.Length);

                  // Close stream

                  newStream.Close();

                  // Assign the response object of 'HttpWebRequest' to a 'HttpWebResponse' variable.

                  HttpWebResponse myHttpWebResponse= (HttpWebResponse)myRequest.GetResponse();

                  // Display the contents of the page to the console.

                  Stream streamResponse=myHttpWebResponse.GetResponseStream();

                  // Get stream object

                  StreamReader streamRead = new StreamReader( streamResponse );

                  Char[] readBuffer = new Char[256];

                  // Read from buffer

                  int count = streamRead.Read( readBuffer, 0, 256 );

                  while (count > 0)

                  {

                        // get string

                        String resultData = new String( readBuffer, 0, count);

                        // Write the data

                        Console.WriteLine( resultData );

                        // Read from buffer

                        count = streamRead.Read( readBuffer, 0, 256);

                  }

                  // Release the response object resources.

                  streamRead.Close();

                  streamResponse.Close();

                  // Close response

                  myHttpWebResponse.Close();

            }

      }

}

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