calling google Url Shortner API in C#

Question

I want to call the google url shortner API from my C# Console Application, the request I try to implement is:

POST https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener

Answer 1

Following is my working code. May be its helpful for you.

private const string key = "xxxxxInsertGoogleAPIKeyHerexxxxxxxxxx";
public string urlShorter(string url)
{
            string finalURL = "";
            string post = "{\"longUrl\": \"" + url + "\"}";
            string shortUrl = url;
            HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?key=" + key);
            try
            {
                request.ServicePoint.Expect100Continue = false;
                request.Method = "POST";
                request.ContentLength = post.Length;
                request.ContentType = "application/json";
                request.Headers.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
                using (Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream())
                {
                    byte[] postBuffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(post);
                    requestStream.Write(postBuffer, 0, postBuffer.Length);
                }
                using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
                {
                    using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
                    {
                        using (StreamReader responseReader = new StreamReader(responseStream))
                        {
                            string json = responseReader.ReadToEnd();
                            finalURL = Regex.Match(json, @"""id"": ?""(?.+)""").Groups["id"].Value;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // if Google's URL Shortener is down...
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.StackTrace);
            }
            return finalURL;
}

Answer 2

How about changing

   var requestContent = new FormUrlEncodedContent(new[] 
        {new KeyValuePair<string, string>("longUrl", s),});

to

   var requestContent = new StringContent("{\"longUrl\": \" + s + \"}");

Answer 3

you can check the code below (made use of System.Net). You should notice that the contenttype must be specfied, and must be "application/json"; and also the string to be send must be in json format.

using System;
using System.Net;

using System.IO;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url");
            httpWebRequest.ContentType = "application/json";
            httpWebRequest.Method = "POST";

            using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(httpWebRequest.GetRequestStream()))
            {
                string json = "{\"longUrl\":\"http://www.google.com/\"}";
                Console.WriteLine(json);
                streamWriter.Write(json);
            }

            var httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.GetResponse();
            using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(httpResponse.GetResponseStream()))
            {
                var responseText = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
                Console.WriteLine(responseText);
            }

        }

    }
}

Answer 4

Google has a NuGet package for using the Urlshortener API. Details can be found here.

Based on this example you would implement it as such:

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using Google.Apis.Services;
using Google.Apis.Urlshortener.v1;
using Google.Apis.Urlshortener.v1.Data;
using Google.Apis.Http;

namespace ConsoleTestBed
{
    class Program
    {
        private const string ApiKey = "YourAPIKey";

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var initializer = new BaseClientService.Initializer
            {
                ApiKey = ApiKey,
                //HttpClientFactory = new ProxySupportedHttpClientFactory()
            };
            var service = new UrlshortenerService(initializer);
            var longUrl = "http://wwww.google.com/";
            var response = service.Url.Insert(new Url { LongUrl = longUrl }).Execute();

            Console.WriteLine($"Short URL: {response.Id}");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

If you are behind a firewall you may need to use a proxy. Below is an implementation of the ProxySupportedHttpClientFactory, which is commented out in the sample above. Credit for this goes to this blog post.

class ProxySupportedHttpClientFactory : HttpClientFactory
{
    private static readonly Uri ProxyAddress 
        = new UriBuilder("http", "YourProxyIP", 80).Uri;
    private static readonly NetworkCredential ProxyCredentials 
        = new NetworkCredential("user", "password", "domain");

    protected override HttpMessageHandler CreateHandler(CreateHttpClientArgs args)
    {
        return new WebRequestHandler
        {
            UseProxy = true,
            UseCookies = false,
            Proxy = new WebProxy(ProxyAddress, false, null, ProxyCredentials)
        };
    }
}