We Keep Coding

How can i retrieve the http response status code from an url?

I am automating a test for a page that contains a URL that needs to be then tested.
I created a method that I believed was giving me the http status code:
public string ContentUrlHttpRequest()
{
HttpWebRequest protocolWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(ContentUrl());
protocolWebRequest.Method = "GET";
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)protocolWebRequest.GetResponse();
return response.Headers.ToString();
}
ContentUrl() is another method i created to find the element on the page with the url to be tested and gets it's value.
I have also tried return response.StatusCode.ToString(); but the response i received was "OK".
I know that the response from that url needs to be = 200. I have this assertion that compares the response from the ContentUrlHttpRequest() to the expected results (200):
Assert.AreEqual("200", ContentUrlHttpRequest(), "The Url is not live. Http response = " + ContentUrlHttpRequest());
The response i am getting from ContentUrlHttpRequest() is not the status code but:"Date: Mon, 03 May 2021 09:07:13 GMT".
I understand why it is happening, it is getting the header of the page that is searching. But how could I get the status code? Is it possible with Selenium? Is there something wrong with my method and instead of Headers I need to use something different?
Unfortunately i am not able to provide with the urls that i am testing, or the platform with the url as they are confidential. Hopefully my issue is clear and you guys can give me some guidance.

You are not returning the response status code. You are returning the headers.
You should replace the return statement with this:
return ((int)response.StatusCode).ToString();

I guess you should use response.Status.ToString(); instead of response.Headers.ToString();
But the status contains not only the number like 200 or 401 but also text.
So if you are going to use response.Status.ToString(); you should Assert.True(ContentUrlHttpRequest().contains("200"))
Or you can use response.StatusCode.ToString(); this will give you the status number itself String without additional texts.

c# HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream Authorization

I got a web Api Controller which is flagged with the Authorize tag.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/system.web.http.authorizeattribute(v=vs.118).aspx
[Authorize()]
public class SomeController : ApiController {}
I'm using HttpWebRequest to do a Post-Request to that controller as follows:
(Please note, I do not provide an authorization header in order to show my issue)
var httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("SomeUrl");
httpWebRequest.ContentType = "text/json";
httpWebRequest.Method = "POST";
StreamWriter streamWriter;
// 1) no error here, works without authentication
using (streamWriter = new StreamWriter(httpWebRequest.GetRequestStream()))
{
string json = "{\"Message\":\"Test\"," + "\"Data\":\"\"}";
streamWriter.Write(json);
streamWriter.Flush();
streamWriter.Close();
}
// 2) here I get a 401: not authorized
var httpResponse = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.GetResponse();
Problem:
I expected to get a not authorized exception, when asking for the request stream. But I can call GetRequestStream and even write to that stream, without any issue.
Only when GetRespone is called, I get the 401 (Not Authorized) which I expected earlier.
I'm just wondering, if this is intended behaviour? And If there is any way to change that. For example, if I want to upload a huge file, all the data will be uploaded before the client is informed that it is not authorized to do so. Somehow that does not make sense to me? Or do I miss something?

You are right, ideally, the GetRequestStream() call should have resulted in the request being sent to the server, and the server responding with a 401.
I think what might be happening is that the server is waiting for you to post the data before replying with the final status. THat is why you get the final response when you call request.GetResponse()
In any case, you should handle exceptions and do the needful.

How to stop receive response when send a request to webServer by Httpwebrequest

I use to send POST request and get response by this way:
response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
But, I just want to send request, I don't care what response is. Size of response package can be up to 500Kb ~ 1Mb, It wastes lots of time. How can I send request and then stop receive response immediately. Thanks so much!

If your only concern is the time it takes to receive the response, and not the bandwidth being used, you could get the response asynchronously.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httpwebrequest.begingetresponse.aspx
The example given is a bit complicated, but the general idea is that your program will not wait for the response to be downloaded when BeginGetResponse is called, like it would if you just called GetResponse. The first method that you pass to BeginGetResponse is the name of a method (called a "callback") that will get called when the response eventually is fully downloaded. This is where you'd put your code to check the HTTP response code, assuming you cared about that. The 2nd parameter is a "state" object that gets passed to your callback method. We'll use this to make sure everything gets cleaned up properly.
It would look something like this:
private void YourMethod()
{
// Set up your request as usual.
request.BeginGetResponse(DownloadComplete, request);
// Code down here runs immediately, without waiting for the response to download
}
private static void DownloadComplete(IAsyncResult ar)
{
var request = (HttpWebRequest)ar.AsyncState;
var response = request.EndGetResponse(ar);
// You can check your response here to make sure everything worked.
}

I assume you are sending a GET request to the server. Change it to a HEAD request.
var request = System.Net.HttpWebRequest.Create("http://...");
request.Method = "HEAD";
request.GetResponse();
This will only return the length of the content. See How to get the file size from http headers for more info.

Can I send an empty HTTP POST WebRequest object from C# to IIS?

Do I need to just slap some random garbage data in a WebRequest object to get by the HTTP status code 411 restriction on IIS?
I have an HttpPost action method in an MVC 3 app that consumes a POST request with all the relevant information passed in the querystring (no body needed).
[HttpPost] public ActionResult SignUp(string email) { ... }
It worked great from Visual Studio's built in web host, Cassini. Unfortunately, once the MVC code was live on IIS [7.5 on 2008 R2], the server is pitching back an HTTP error code when I hit it from my outside C# form app.
The remote server returned an error:
(411) Length Required.
Here is the calling code:
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://somewhere.com/signup/?email=a#b.com");
request.Method = "POST";
using (WebResponse response = request.GetResponse())
using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
using (StreamReader responseReader = new StreamReader(responseStream)) {
// Do something with responseReader.ReadToEnd();
}

Turns out you can get this to go through by simply slapping an empty content length on the request before you send it.
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://somewhere.com/signup/?email=a#b.com");
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentLength = 0;
Not sure how explicitly giving an empty length vs. implying one makes a difference, but IIS was happy after I did. There are probably other ways around this, but this seems simple enough.

I believe you are required to set a Content-Length header anytime you post a request to a web server:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httprequest.contentlength.aspx
You could try a GET request to test it.

Test if a website is alive from a C# application

I am looking for the best way to test if a website is alive from a C# application.
Background
My application consists of a Winforms UI, a backend WCF service and a website to publish content to the UI and other consumers. To prevent the situation where the UI starts up and fails to work properly because of a missing WCF service or website being down I have added an app startup check to ensure that all everything is alive.
The application is being written in C#, .NET 3.5, Visual Studio 2008
Current Solution
Currently I am making a web request to a test page on the website that will inturn test the web site and then display a result.
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://localhost/myContentSite/test.aspx");
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
I am assuming that if there are no exceptions thown during this call then all is well and the UI can start.
Question
Is this the simplest, right way or is there some other sneaky call that I don't know about in C# or a better way to do it.

HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
if (response == null || response.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.OK)
As #Yanga mentioned, HttpClient is probably the more common way to do this now.
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
var checkingResponse = await client.GetAsync(url);
if (!checkingResponse.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
return false;
}

While using WebResponse please make sure that you close the response stream ie (.close) else it would hang the machine after certain repeated execution.
Eg
HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(sURL);
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse();
// your code here
response.Close();

from the NDiagnostics project on CodePlex...
public override bool WebSiteIsAvailable(string Url)
{
string Message = string.Empty;
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(Url);
// Set the credentials to the current user account
request.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
request.Method = "GET";
try
{
using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
{
// Do nothing; we're only testing to see if we can get the response
}
}
catch (WebException ex)
{
Message += ((Message.Length > 0) ? "\n" : "") + ex.Message;
}
return (Message.Length == 0);
}

We can today update the answers using HttpClient():
HttpClient Client = new HttpClient();
var result = await Client.GetAsync("https://stackoverflow.com");
int StatusCode = (int)result.StatusCode;

Assuming the WCF service and the website live in the same web app, you can use a "Status" WebService that returns the application status. You probably want to do some of the following:
Test that the database is up and running (good connection string, service is up, etc...)
Test that the website is working (how exactly depends on the website)
Test that WCF is working (how exactly depends on your implementation)
Added bonus: you can return some versioning info on the service if you need to support different releases in the future.
Then, you create a client on the Win.Forms app for the WebService. If the WS is not responding (i.e. you get some exception on invoke) then the website is down (like a "general error").
If the WS responds, you can parse the result and make sure that everything works, or if something is broken, return more information.

You'll want to check the status code for OK (status 200).

Solution from: How do you check if a website is online in C#?
var ping = new System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping();
var result = ping.Send("https://www.stackoverflow.com");
if (result.Status != System.Net.NetworkInformation.IPStatus.Success)
return;