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}¶m2={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();
}
}
}
