ASP.NET: httpwebrequest date header workaround

Question

I'm trying to integrate with an API that requires the "Date" header in a web request. As you may well know, .NET has removed the ability to append or even display a default Date header in your request, so I was wondering about a workaround.

Here's the catch: you can't use TCPClients because I don't have "permissions" on my server for such a thing as sockets. Is there some way to "cheat" the system to fake a date header or to trick it into posting a Date header? Or should I just give up on this API?

Thanks...

(PS, language is VB.NET if you please :) )

Answer 1

According to the documentation, the system will add a Date header with the current date and time. Do you need a different value for the header?

You may be able to add it by using request.Headers.AddWithoutValidate.

Answer 2

This isn't the fastest code in the world, but it might work for a while:

Type type = request.Headers.GetType();
MethodInfo method = type.GetMethod("AddWithoutValidate", 
    BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
method.Invoke(request.Headers, new [] { "Date", DateTime.Now.ToString() })

Just be aware that using reflection to access private or protected members is extremely fragile and can break with any update to .NET that MS does...

Answer 3

I found the answer to the date problem, you just have to access the request directly as a HttpWebRequest. It seems like a simple answer but it worked.

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(Uri)  ;

request.Date = date;
request.Method = "POST";