RestWrapper

A simple C# class library to help simplify sending REST API requests and retrieving responses (RESTful HTTP and HTTPS)

Special Thanks

Thanks go out to the community for their help in making this library great!

@nhaberl @jmkinzer @msasanmh @lanwah @nhaberl

New in v3.0.x

Minor breaking changes
Migration from HttpWebRequest to HttpClient
Strong naming
Retrieve query elements from RestRequest.Query property

Test Apps

Test projects are included which will help you exercise the class library.

Examples

// simple GET example
using RestWrapper;
using System.IO;

RestRequest req = new RestRequest("http://www.google.com/");
RestResponse resp = req.Send();
Console.WriteLine("Status: " + resp.StatusCode);
// response data is in resp.Data

// simple POST example
using RestWrapper;
using System.IO;

RestRequest req = new RestRequest("http://127.0.0.1:8000/api", HttpMethod.POST);
RestResponse resp = req.Send("Hello, world!");
Console.WriteLine("Status : " + resp.StatusCode);
// response data is in resp.Data

// async methods
using RestWrapper;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

RestRequest req = new RestRequest(
	"http://127.0.0.1:8000/api",
	HttpMethod.POST,
	"text/plain"); // Content type

RestResponse resp = await req.SendAsync("Hello, world!");
Console.WriteLine("Status : " + resp.StatusCode);
// response data is in resp.Data

// sending form data
using RestWrapper;

RestRequest req = new RestRequest("http://127.0.0.1:8000/api", HttpMethod.POST);

Dictionary<string, string> form = new Dictionary<string, string>();
form.Add("foo", "bar");
form.Add("hello", "world how are you");

RestResponse resp = req.Send(form);
Console.WriteLine("Status : " + resp.StatusCode);

// deserializing JSON
using RestWrapper;

RestRequest req = new RestRequest("http://127.0.0.1:8000/api");
RestResponse resp = req.Send();
MyObject obj = resp.DataFromJson<MyObject>();

A Note on Performance and 'localhost'

RestWrapper uses the underlying HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes from System.Net. When using localhost as the target URL, you may notice in Wireshark that HttpWebRequest will first attempt to connect to the IPv6 loopback address, and not all services listen on IPv6. This can create a material delay of more than 1 second. In these cases, it is recommended that you use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost for these cases.

Basic Telemetry

The RestResponse object contains a property called Time that can be useful for understanding how long a request took to complete.

RestRequest req = new RestRequest("https://www.cnn.com");
RestResponse resp = req.Send();
Console.WriteLine("Start    : " + resp.Time.Start);
Console.WriteLine("End      : " + resp.Time.End);
Console.WriteLine("Total ms : " + resp.Time.TotalMs + "ms");

Deserializing Response Data

The method RestResponse.DataFromJson<T>() will deserialize using System.Text.Json. You can override the RestResponse.SerializationHelper property with your own implementation of ISerializationHelper if you wish to use your own deserializer. Thank you @nhaberl for the suggestion.

Version History

Please refer to CHANGELOG.md for version history.

jchristn/RestWrapper