How to post data to specific URL using WebClient in C#

Question

I need to use \"HTTP Post\" with WebClient to post some data to a specific URL I have.

Now, I know this can be accomplished with WebRequest but for some reasons I wa

Answer 1

Using WebClient.UploadString or WebClient.UploadData you can POST data to the server easily. I’ll show an example using UploadData, since UploadString is used in the same manner as DownloadString.

byte[] bret = client.UploadData("http://www.website.com/post.php", "POST",
                System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("field1=value1&field2=value2") );
 
string sret = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bret);

More: http://www.daveamenta.com/2008-05/c-webclient-usage/

Answer 2

Using simple client.UploadString(adress, content); normally works fine but I think it should be remembered that a WebException will be thrown if not a HTTP successful status code is returned. I usually handle it like this to print any exception message the remote server is returning:

try
{
    postResult = client.UploadString(address, content);
}
catch (WebException ex)
{
    String responseFromServer = ex.Message.ToString() + " ";
    if (ex.Response != null)
    {
        using (WebResponse response = ex.Response)
        {
            Stream dataRs = response.GetResponseStream();
            using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(dataRs))
            {
                responseFromServer += reader.ReadToEnd();
                _log.Error("Server Response: " + responseFromServer);
            }
        }
    }
    throw;
}