Fake a form submission with C# WebClient

Question

I need to call a web and retrieve the resulting data from the model in my asp.net mvc application. When accessed on the web, the form looks like this:

<form id="textEntryForm" name="textEntryForm" method="post" action="/project/evaluate_to_pdf">
            <textarea id="p" rows="20" name="p" cols="132"/><br/> 
            <input type="button" value="parse" name="do_parse" onclick="new Ajax.Updater('parsedProject','/project/parse',{asynchronous:true,evalScripts:true,on404:function(e){alert('not found!')},parameters:Form.serialize(this.form)});return false"/>
            <input type="button" value="evaluate_to_html" name="do_evaluate_to_html" onclick="new Ajax.Updater('parsedProject','/project/evaluate_to_html',{asynchronous:true,evalScripts:true,on404:function(e){alert('not found!')},parameters:Form.serialize(this.form)});return false"/>
            <input type="button" value="evaluate" name="do_evaluate" onclick="new Ajax.Updater('parsedProject','/project/evaluate',{asynchronous:true,evalScripts:true,on404:function(e){alert('not found!')},parameters:Form.serialize(this.form)});return false"/>
            <input type="button" value="evaluate to pdf source" name="do_evaluate_to_pdf_source" onclick="new Ajax.Updater('parsedProject','/project/evaluate_to_pdf_source',{asynchronous:true,evalScripts:true,on404:function(e){alert('not found!')},parameters:Form.serialize(this.form)});return false"/>
            <input type="submit" id="do_evaluate_to_pdf" value="evaluate_to_pdf" name="do_evaluate_to_pdf"/>
        </form>

I need to pass the data that would be entered into textarea id="p". How do add that in, using a WebClient to connect?

Thanks!

Edit This isn't for testing purposes, I need to retrieve the data for use in my application.

Answer 1

You create a Stream and pass it into your HttpWebRequest.

// Create a request using a URL that can receive a post. 
WebRequest request = 
    WebRequest.Create("http://www.contoso.com/PostAccepter.aspx ");
// Set the Method property of the request to POST.
request.Method = "POST";

// Create POST data and convert it to a byte array.
string postData = "p=Some text here from the textarea";

byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes (postData);
// Set the ContentType property of the WebRequest.
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
// Set the ContentLength property of the WebRequest.
request.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
// Get the request stream.
Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream ();
// Write the data to the request stream.
dataStream.Write (byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
// Close the Stream object.
dataStream.Close ();
// Get the response.
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse ();
// Display the status.
Console.WriteLine (((HttpWebResponse)response).StatusDescription);
// Get the stream containing content returned by the server.
dataStream = response.GetResponseStream ();
// Open the stream using a StreamReader for easy access.
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader (dataStream);
// Read the content.
string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd ();
// Display the content.
Console.WriteLine (responseFromServer);
// Clean up the streams.
reader.Close ();
dataStream.Close ();
response.Close ();

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/debx8sh9.aspx

Answer 2

These things have a habit of becoming more and more complex, for example should you need to handle cookies, authentication or multipart form uploads for uploading files etc. I suggest using curl (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libcurl-net/)

Answer 3

I just used this: http://www.eggheadcafe.com/community/aspnet/2/69261/you-can-use-the-webclient.aspx

Answer 4

Something like this:

HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
req.Method = "POST";
req.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
string data = "&p=" + dataThatNeedsToBeInTextArea;
byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes (data);
req.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
Stream stream= req.GetRequestStream ();
stream.Write (byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
stream.Close ();
StreamReader streamIn = new StreamReader(req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream());
string response = streamIn.ReadToEnd();
streamIn .Close();

Answer 5

Agreeing with @wentbackward, WatiN is another alternative.