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Chapter 10 Part 8:

HTTP with .NET

 

 

What do we have in this chapter 10 Part 8?

14. Web Proxies

15. WebRequest and WebResponse

16. Cookies

17. Asynchronous HTTP Model

 

In addition to the ability to set the proxy server information on each request, the .NET Framework maintains a global proxy setting for use as the default proxy for all Web requests if a proxy setting is not explicitly provided. This is done through the GlobalProxySelection class. The property of interest is Select, which is assigned a WebProxy object that will be the default proxy server for subsequent requests when a proxy server is not explicitly assigned. The GlobalProxySelection.GetEmptyWebProxy() method is of interest because it can be assigned to GlobalProxySelection.Select to turn off all use of a proxy server across the entire application.

Finally, a default proxy setting for System.Net can be specified in the machine.config file located in the .NET Framework runtime installation directory usually found under <drive>:\<windir>\Microsoft.Net\Framework\<version>\config. The default setting should appear as follows:

 

<system.net>

    <defaultProxy>

        <proxy usesystemdefault="true"/>

    </defaultProxy>

</system.net>

 

The following screenshot is for version 1.x (C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\CONFIG). For version 2.x we need to add it manually and for version 3.x, seemed machine.config cannot be found under the previous path.

 

 

This setting indicates that System.Net will use the computer’s proxy settings, as specified in the Internet Options control panel applet. The system default settings for proxy servers will generally suffice and applications do not have to set a specific proxy on the request.

 

WebRequest and WebResponse

 

The WebRequest and WebResponse classes offer protocol agnostic abstract interfaces to request-response communication. Currently, the .NET Framework offers handlers for file and HTTP transfers, and it is possible for other protocols to be plugged into the same harness by inheriting from the WebRequest and WebResponse classes.

We’ve seen how the WebRequest class plays a role in issuing an HTTP request. Earlier, when we created an HTTP request, we called the WebRequest.Create() method with the URI of the resource being requested. Because the URI begins with the protocol http, the WebRequest class is able to determine that the HTTP handler should be called to service this request. Likewise, if the URI passed to Create() was file://c:\files\myfile.txt, then the file handler FileWebRequest is called to service the request.

The advantage of using the WebRequest and WebResponse classes, rather than casting the returned object to its specific type, such as HttpWebRequest, is that all operations for issuing the request and handling the response are available in these base classes. That is, a Web page can be retrieved solely by creating a WebRequest object and retrieving the WebResponse or by using WebClient, which builds on WebRequest and WebResponse. Notice that for C#, it is necessary to cast the Web object to its specific type to access properties specific to that protocol (for example, the Connection property of the HttpWebRequest class).

As mentioned earlier, the sequence of calls for handling a request- response operation with WebRequest is the same as it is for the HttpWebRequest class. The following code illustrates this point:

 

C#

 

// Create the request object

WebRequest  request = WebRequest.Create(address);

// Issue the request

WebResponse  response  = request.GetResponse();

// Read the content

StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), Encoding.ASCII);

 

string content = reader.ReadToEnd();

 

// Display the content to the console

Console.WriteLine(content);

// Close the response

response.Close()

 

Visual Basic .NET

 

' Create the request object

Dim request As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(address)

' Issue the request

Dim response As WebResponse = request.GetResponse()

' Read the content

Dim reader As New StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), Encoding.ASCII)

 

Dim content As String = reader.ReadToEnd()

 

' Display the content to the console

Console.WriteLine(content)

' Close the response

response.Close();

 

 

 

 

Cookies

 

Cookies are used by Web servers to associate information with a particular user so that context information can be maintained for a given user across multiple Web requests. When a Web request is received by the server, the server might include a cookie (via the Set-Cookie header) for the client to include in each subsequent request to that server. This way, each subsequent request to the server will include the cookie information in the Cookie header.

A cookie itself is simply a collection of name/value strings. Cookies are defined in RFC 2109 and RFC 2965. A single name/value pair is exposed in the .NET Framework through the Cookie class while the CookieCollection class stores multiple Cookie objects as a single store. A Cookie has several properties besides the name and value (expiration date, for example). The following code creates two simple cookies and adds them to a CookieCollection object.

 

C#

 

Cookie  cookieObj;

CookieCollection cookieJar = new CookieCollection();

 

cookieObj = new Cookie("user", "Joe");

cookieJar.Add( cookieObj );

 

cookieObj = new Cookie("item", "ISBN0123456789");

cookieJar.Add( cookieObj )

 

Visual Basic .NET

 

Dim cookieObj As Cookie

Dim cookieJar As CookieCollection = New CookieCollection

 

cookieObj = New Cookie("user", "Joe")

cookieJar.Add(cookieObj)

 

cookieObj = New Cookie("item", "ISBN0123456789")

cookieJar.Add(cookieObj)

 

The first asynchronous method is BeginGetRequestStream(), which is used for HTTP methods other than GET and HEAD. When this asynchronous request is issued, the callback is invoked and the request stream can be retrieved from the request object to send data associated with the Web request. If BeginGetRequestStream() is invoked on a Web request whose method is GET or HEAD, a ProtocolViolationException exception is thrown. The BeginGetRequestStream() is most commonly used with the POST method, as shown in the following example:

 

C#

 

// Common state information

public class HttpState

{

    public HttpWebRequest httpRequest;

    public HttpWebResponse httpResponse;

}

public class AsyncPost

{

    public void DoAsyncPost()

    {

        try

        {

            HttpState httpRequestState = new HttpState();

            // Setup the request

            httpRequestState.httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.microsoft.com/");

            httpRequestState.httpRequest.Method = "POST";

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

            // Post the async operation

            IAsyncResult ar = httpRequestState.httpRequest.BeginGetRequestStream(

                    new AsyncCallback(HttpRequestStreamCallback), httpRequestState);

            // Process the response stream

            httpRequestState.httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpRequestState.httpRequest.GetResponse();

            // Retrieve the response stream

            StreamReader responseStream = new StreamReader(httpRequestState.httpResponse.GetResponseStream());

            // Receive the response

            httpRequestState.httpResponse.Close();

        }

        catch (Exception ex)

        {

            Console.WriteLine("Exception occurred: {0}", ex.Message);

        }

    }

    private static void HttpRequestStreamCallback(IAsyncResult ar)

    {

        try

        {

            // State of request is set to asynchronous.

            HttpState httpRequestState = (HttpState)ar.AsyncState;

            // End of the Asynchronous request.

            Stream streamResponse = httpRequestState.httpRequest.EndGetRequestStream(ar);

 

            byte[ ] postData = new byte[1024];

 

            // Setup data to write on the request stream

            streamResponse.Write(postData, 0, postData.Length);

            streamResponse.Close();

        }

        catch (Exception ex)

        {

            Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());

        }

    }

}

 

Visual Basic .NET

 

' Common state information

Public Class HttpState

    Public httpRequest As HttpWebRequest

    Public httpResponse As HttpWebResponse

End Class

 

Public Class AsyncPost

    Public Sub DoAsyncPost()

        Try

            Dim httpRequestState As HttpState = New HttpState

            ' Setup the request

            httpRequestState.httpRequest = WebRequest.Create("http://www.microsoft.com/")

            httpRequestState.httpRequest.Method = "POST"

            httpRequestState.httpRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

            ' Post the async operation

            Dim ar As IAsyncResult = httpRequestState.httpRequest.BeginGetRequestStream(_

                    AddressOf HttpRequestStreamCallback, httpRequestState )

            ' Process the response stream

            httpRequestState.httpResponse = httpRequestState.httpRequest.GetResponse()

            ' Retrieve the response stream

            Dim responseStream As StreamReader = New StreamReader(httpRequestState.httpResponse.GetResponseStream())

            ' Receive the response

            httpRequestState.httpResponse.Close()

        Catch ex As Exception

            Console.WriteLine("Exception occurred: {0}", ex.Message)

        End Try

    End Sub

 

    Private Sub HttpRequestStreamCallback(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult)

        Try

            ' State of request is set to asynchronous.

            Dim httpRequestState As HttpState = ar.AsyncState

            ' End of the Asynchronous request.

            Dim streamResponse As Stream = httpRequestState.httpRequest.EndGetRequestStream(ar)

            Dim postData(1024) As Byte

            ' Setup data to write on the request stream

            streamResponse.Write(postData, 0, postData.Length)

            streamResponse.Close()

        Catch ex As Exception

            Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString())

        End Try

    End Sub

End Class

 

The second asynchronous method is BeginGetResponse(), which invokes the callback once the request has been sent to the server and the response headers received. Within the callback, the application can retrieve the entity by first retrieving the Web response via the GetResponseStream() method followed by retrieving the response stream. The following code shows how to issue an asynchronous BeginGetResponse(), as well as the asynchronous delegate method.

 

C#

 

public class AsyncGet

{

    public void DoAsyncGet()

    {

        try

        {

            HttpState httpStateRequest = new HttpState();

            httpStateRequest.httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.microsoft.com/");

            // Get the response object

            IAsyncResult ar = httpStateRequest.httpRequest.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback(HttpResponseCallback), httpStateRequest);

        }

        catch (WebException wex)

        {

            Console.WriteLine("Exception occurred on request: {0}", wex.Message);

        }

    }

    private static void HttpResponseCallback(IAsyncResult ar)

    {

        try

        {

            HttpState httpRequestState = (HttpState)ar.AsyncState;

            // Complete the asynchronous request

            httpRequestState.httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpRequestState.httpRequest.EndGetResponse(ar);

            // Read the response into a Stream object.

            Stream httpResponseStream = httpRequestState.httpResponse.GetResponseStream();

            // Post asynchronous Read operations on stream

            return;

        }

        catch (WebException ex)

        {

            Console.WriteLine("Exception: {0}", ex.Message);

        }

    }

}

 

Visual Basic .NET

 

Public Class AsyncGet

    Public Sub DoAsyncGet()

        Try

            Dim httpStateRequest As HttpState = New HttpState

            httpStateRequest.httpRequest = WebRequest.Create("http://www.microsoft.com/")

            ' Get the response object

            Dim ar As IAsyncResult

            ar = httpStateRequest.httpRequest.BeginGetResponse(AddressOf HttpResponseCallback, httpStateRequest)

        Catch wex As WebException

            Console.WriteLine("Exception occurred on request: {0}", wex.Message)

        End Try

    End Sub

 

    Private Sub HttpResponseCallback(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult)

        Try

            Dim httpRequestState As HttpState = ar.AsyncState

            ' Complete the asynchronous request

            httpRequestState.httpResponse = httpRequestState.httpRequest.EndGetResponse(ar)

            ' Read the response into a Stream object.

            Dim httpResponseStream As Stream = httpRequestState.httpResponse.GetResponseStream()

            ' Post asynchronous Read operations on stream

            Return

        Catch ex As WebException

            Console.WriteLine("Exception: {0}", ex.Message)

        End Try

    End Sub

End Class

 

 

 

 

It is possible to cancel an asynchronous Web request after it is issued. This can be desirable if the operation is taking too long, such as with a heavily burdened Web server. Cancellation is done by calling the Abort() method on the Web request object. There are a number of ways to structure an application to handle timing out a Web request and aborting the connection. A simple method is to use the thread pool to schedule a timer event using the WaitOrTimerCallback() and specifying the context information for the request along with the timeout length, as the following code illustrates:

 

C#

 

public void DoAsyncWithTimeout()

{

    HttpState  httpRequestState = new HttpState();

    // Create the request

    httpRequestState.httpRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://www.microsoft.com/");

    // Post the async get response

    IAsyncResult ar = httpRequestState.httpRequest.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback( HttpResponseCallback ), httpRequestState);

    // Register for a timeout

    ThreadPool.RegisterWaitForSingleObject(

        ar.AsyncWaitHandle,

        new WaitOrTimerCallback( RequestTimeoutCallback ),

        httpRequestState,

        10 * 1000,  // 10 second timeout

        true

        );

}

 

static void RequestTimeoutCallback( object state, bool timedout )

{

    if ( timedout == true )

    {

        HttpState  requestState = state as HttpState;

        if ((requestState != null) && (requestState.httpRequest != null))

        {

            requestState.httpRequest.Abort();

        }

    }

}

 

Visual Basic .NET

 

Public Sub DoAsyncWithTimeout()

    Dim httpRequestState As HttpState = New HttpState

 

    ' Create the request

    httpRequestState.httpRequest = WebRequest.Create("http://www.microsoft.com/")

    ' Post the async get response

    Dim ar As IAsyncResult = _

        httpRequestState.httpRequest.BeginGetResponse( _

            AddressOf HttpResponseCallback, _

            httpRequestState _

            )

 

    ' Register for a timeout

    ThreadPool.RegisterWaitForSingleObject( _

        ar.AsyncWaitHandle, _

        AddressOf RequestTimeoutCallback, _

        httpRequestState, _

        10 * 1000, _

        True)

End Sub

 

Private Sub RequestTimeoutCallback(ByVal state As Object, ByVal timedout As Boolean)

    If timedout = True Then

        Dim requestState As HttpState = state

        If (Not requestState Is Nothing) And (Not requestState.httpRequest Is Nothing) Then

            requestState.httpRequest.Abort()

        End If

    End If

End Sub

 

In the preceding code sample, if the asynchronous delegate registered with the BeginGetResponse() call does not fire within 10 seconds, the RequestTimeoutCallback() delegate will be invoked. Notice that the state information associated with the asynchronous GET request is also passed to the timeout function. This context block should contain the HttpWebRequest object so that the Abort() method can be called on it. Note that due to the way asynchronous methods use a thread pool, it is not recommended that you mix synchronous and asynchronous method calls. This is because calling from within an asynchronous delegate will block the thread, which leaves fewer threads to service other asynchronous delegates, leading to potential starvation. For example, if your application calls HttpWebResponse.BeginGetResponseStream() to retrieve the stream, it should then use the Stream.BeginRead() method on the stream rather than Stream.Read().

 

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< VB .NET Http Post Request Program Example | Main | C++ Asynchronous Http Get Request Program Example >