Using HttpRequestConfig with HttpClient and HttpWebRequest

ServiceStack.Text HTTP Utils
1

I’ve been reading the documentation on http-utils.

The doc says:

Which lets you configure a HttpRequestConfig that is equally applied to their HttpClient and HttpWebRequest implementations.

I think I’m going about this the wrong way.

using this HttpRequestConfig:

    HttpRequestConfig cfg = new ();
    cfg.AddHeader(HttpHeaders.Accept, MimeTypes.Json);
    cfg.SetAuthBearer("theapikey");
    cfg.ContentType = MimeTypes.Json;

How can the above HttpRequestConfig be applied/used to/with HttpClient and HttpWebRequest?

Could you provide a simple example of each…? Or explain how this class is intended to be used?

I’ve looked but I can’t find one.

Thanks.

2

Here is an simple console program example with HttpClient doing a GET request.

using ServiceStack;

using var httpClient = new HttpClient();
var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "https://web.web-templates.io/hello/world");

httpRequestMessage.With(config =>
{
    config.Accept = "application/json";
    config.UserAgent = "MyCustomAgent/1.0";
});

var httpResponseMessage = await httpClient.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage);
var responseBody = await httpResponseMessage.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
        
Console.WriteLine($"Response: {responseBody}");

Another performing a post:

using System.Text;
using ServiceStack;
using ServiceStack.Text;

using var httpClient = new HttpClient();
var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Post, "https://web.web-templates.io/hello");

var payload = new { Name = "world" };
var payloadString = JsonSerializer.SerializeToString(payload);

httpRequestMessage.Content = new StringContent(payloadString, Encoding.UTF8);

httpRequestMessage.With(config =>
{
    config.ContentType = "application/json";
    config.Accept = "application/json";
});

var httpResponseMessage = await httpClient.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage);
var responseBody = await httpResponseMessage.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
        
Console.WriteLine($"Response: {responseBody}");

If you aren’t using HttpClient, the same can be used to configure HttpWebRequest:

HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://web.web-templates.io/hello/world");

httpWebRequest.With(config =>
{
    config.Accept = "application/json";
    config.UserAgent = "MyCustomAgent/1.0";
});

HttpWebResponse httpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.GetResponse();

using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(httpWebResponse.GetResponseStream()))
{
    string response = reader.ReadToEnd();
    Console.WriteLine($"Response: {response}");
}

So you can use your cfg in the With action to configure the options.

The https-utils page shows examples used with other extension methods like GetJsonFromUrlAsync where the requestFilter action is supplying the HttpWebRequest or HttpRequestMessage in with the interchangeable .With actions are used:

var json = await url.GetJsonFromUrlAsync(requestFilter: req => 
    req.With(c => {
        c.UserAgent = UserAgent;
        c.SetAuthBasic(ClientId, ClientSecret);
    }), token: token).ConfigAwait();

So the same type of request code can be reduced quite a bit to this simplified form for common use cases where your requestFilter action code might be common.

Hope that helps.

3

I’m really missing something here… Thank you for the multiple examples.

Your first example is what I’m looking for. How would you use the pre-populated HttpRequestConfig ? I mean how can you pass in cfg ?

Let’s say In your example:

using ServiceStack;

HttpRequestConfig cfg = new ();
cfg.AddHeader(HttpHeaders.Accept, MimeTypes.Json);
cfg.SetAuthBearer("theapikey");
cfg.ContentType = MimeTypes.Json;

using var httpClient = new HttpClient();
var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, "https://web.web-templates.io/hello/world");

httpRequestMessage.With(config =>
{
    config = cfg; // ? 
});

var httpResponseMessage = await httpClient.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage);
var responseBody = await httpResponseMessage.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
    
Console.WriteLine($"Response: {responseBody}");
4

HttpRequestConfig is what to use to configure the existing pre-configured http request, not reassign it.

You can pass a local function to With() it instead:

void Config(HttpRequestConfig cfg) {
    cfg.AddHeader(HttpHeaders.Accept, MimeTypes.Json);
    cfg.SetAuthBearer("theapikey");
    cfg.ContentType = MimeTypes.Json;
}

httpRequestMessage.With(Config);
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