Xml Request and response from a URL

Question

I'm trying to get a response from a URL which takes an Xml input and returns an Xml output.

And there is this case when this Url returns Bad Request 400, in this case in code I'll get an exception and I can't view the Xml, but if I tried the same input in postman I'll get the Xml output.

In case of the exception I can catch this exception by using WebException, but here in the end when I read the response using reader.ReadToEnd() I'll get a JSON not the Xml output that I got from postman

Postman output example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<RESPONSE MODE="DIRECT" TYPE="PINPRINTING">
    <RESULTMESSAGE>User not allowed to process</RESULTMESSAGE>
</RESPONSE>

and this is my code:

public void GetResponse()
        {
            try
            {
                HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(myURL);
                request.Accept = "application/xml";

                byte[] requestInFormOfBytes = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(requestXmlDoc.InnerXml);
                request.Method = "POST";
                request.ContentType = "text/xml;charset=utf-8";
                request.ContentLength = requestInFormOfBytes.Length;
                Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream();

                requestStream.Write(requestInFormOfBytes, 0, requestInFormOfBytes.Length);
                requestStream.Close();

                HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
                StreamReader respStream = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), System.Text.Encoding.Default);
                string receivedResponse = respStream.ReadToEnd();
            }
            catch (WebException e)
            {
                using (WebResponse response = e.Response)
                {
                    HttpWebResponse httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)response;
                    Console.WriteLine("Error code: {0}", httpResponse.StatusCode);
                    using (Stream data = response.GetResponseStream())
                    using (var reader = new StreamReader(data, ASCIIEncoding.ASCII))
                    {
                        string text = reader.ReadToEnd();

                        Console.WriteLine(text);
                    }
                }
            }
        }

the returned JSON is something like this:

{
  "status": 400,
  "statusDesc": "Invalid input"
}

The data must of been encrypted using TLS is you were not able to see the request. TLS is automatically used when HTTPS is used. — jdweng, Apr 05 '21 at 08:25

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 05 '21 at 08:21

0

Heh I found the answer it was the content type. changed: request.ContentType = "text/xml;charset=utf-8"; to this request.ContentType = "application/xml"; and now I get the Xml that I need

answered Apr 05 '21 at 08:21

Hasan

57
1
9

That's way too much code for a simple `HttpClient.PostAsync` with a `StringContent`. Using 7-bit ASCII instead of UTF8 is another serious bug. .NET supports XML over HTTP since 2002 - in fact SOAP, the XML Web Services standard, was created by Microsoft. .NET supports all SOAP standards through WCF. – Panagiotis Kanavos Apr 05 '21 at 08:25
Even with the legacy HttpWebRequest class that's way too much code. By now though, HttpWebRequest is just a legacy facade over HttpClient – Panagiotis Kanavos Apr 05 '21 at 08:26
The Url is for external integration not our Api, but can minimize this code even more? – Hasan Apr 05 '21 at 08:36
[Check this question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25352462/how-to-send-xml-content-with-httpclient-postasync). The relevant code is just 2 lines. – Panagiotis Kanavos Apr 05 '21 at 09:02

Xml Request and response from a URL

1 Answers1