.NET Httpclient encoding a url but I dont want it to

Question

I have a url with the pipe | symbol. When I call it from Httpclient it is getting encoded to %7C.

I read there was a 'dont escape' on the Uri in .NET but that has now been marked obsolete.

Is there anything I can do so that this | is not encoded on the request?

The url I am building is like:

HttpRequestMessage requestMessage = _httpClient.PrepareRequestMessage($"your/notstandardquerystringparam:term|otherterm", HttpMethod.Get, null, null);
var response = await _httpClient.SendAsync(requestMessage);

The service I am calling is failing when the | symbol is getting encoded. I need it passed to the service as the actual | symbol

What part of the uri do you want to use the symbol in? And why is it not okay to escape it? — NineBerry, Dec 22 '22 at 23:10
There is no `PrepareRequestMessage` method on the [`HttpClient` class](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.net.http.httpclient?view=net-7.0). Is that method introducing this encoding? — StriplingWarrior, Aug 15 '23 at 23:08

hwcverwe · Answer 1 · 2022-12-22T23:15:58.587

Maybe this is an interesting post that might help: URL Encoding using C#

Personally, I am using a library like RestSharp to do this.

I am not sure where that pipe needs to be. In the URL segment or query? I assume the query parameters in the following example since that is the only place where I could imagine you need a pipe.

using var client = new RestClient("https://example.com/api");

var request = new RestRequest("your/endpoint");

// the last parameter encode=false will disable encoding
request.AddQueryParameter("queryname", "term|otherterm", false); 

var response = await client.GetAsync(request);

// GET https://example.com/api/your/endpoint?queryname=term|otherterm

.NET Httpclient encoding a url but I dont want it to

1 Answers1