Easiest Way to Read from a Url into a String in .Net

Easiest way to read from a URL into a string in .NET

Given that, at the time of this writing, HttpClient is the only remaining, valid .Net mechanism for performing this function, and, in any case where you're "not worried about asynchronous calls" (which appear to be unavoidable with HttpClient), I think that this function should get you what you're after:

public static class Http
{
    ///<remarks>NOTE: The <i>HttpCLient</i> class is <b>intended</b> to only ever be instantiated once in any application.</remarks>
    private static readonly HttpClient _client = new();

    /// <summary>Used to retrieve webserver data via simple <b>GET</b> requests.</summary>
    /// <param name="url">A string containing the complete web <b>URL</b> to submit.</param>
    /// <returns>Whatever <i>HttpClient</i> returns after attempting the supplied query (as a <i>Task<string></i> value).</returns>
    /// <exception cref="InvalidOperationException">Returned if the supplied <i>url</i> string is null, empty or whitespace.</exception>
    private static async Task<string> HttpClientKludge( string url )
    {
        if ( string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace( url ) )
            throw new InvalidOperationException( "You must supply a url to interrogate for this function to work." );

        Uri uri;
        try { uri = new Uri( url ); }
        catch ( UriFormatException e ) { return $"{e.Message}\r\n{url}"; }

        return await _client.GetStringAsync( uri );
    }

    /// <summary>Attempts to interrogate a website via the supplied URL and stores the result in a <i>string</i>.</summary>
    /// <param name="url">A string containing a fully-formed, proper URL to retrieve.</param>
    /// <param name="captureExceptions">If <b>TRUE</b>, any Exceptions generated by the operation will be suppressed with their Message returned as the result string, otherwise they're thrown normally.</param>
    /// <returns>The result generated by submitting the request, as a <i>string</i>.</returns>
    public static string Get( string url, bool captureExceptions = true )
    {
        string result;
        try { result = HttpClientKludge( url ).Result; }
        catch (AggregateException e)
        {
            if (!captureExceptions) throw;
            result = e.InnerException is null ? e.Message : e.InnerException.Message;
        }
        return result;
    }
}

With that in place, anytime you want to interrogate a website with a simple URL+GET inquiry, you can simply do:

string query = "/search?q=Easiest+way+to+read+from+a+URL+into+a+string+in+.NET",
siteResponse = Http.Get( $"https://www.google.com{query}" );
// Now use 'siteResponse' in any way you want...

How to get/read text file from a url using C#?

It seems that website requires you to send a UserAgent header. (Seems it can be anything)

var webRequest = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create("https://whitworthpirates.com/services/schedule_txt.ashx?schedule=139");
webRequest.UserAgent = "Hej";

var response = webRequest.GetResponse();
var content = response.GetResponseStream();

using (var reader = new StreamReader(content))
{
    string strContent = reader.ReadToEnd();
    strContent.Dump();
}

Get URL parameters from a string in .NET

Use static ParseQueryString method of System.Web.HttpUtility class that returns NameValueCollection.

Uri myUri = new Uri("http://www.example.com?param1=good¶m2=bad");
string param1 = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(myUri.Query).Get("param1");

Check documentation at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms150046.aspx

Is there a way to read from a website, one line at a time?

Don't download the url as a string, read it as a stream.

using System.IO;
using System.Net;

var url ="http://thebnet.x10.mx/HWID/BaseHWID/AlloweHwids.txt";
var client = new WebClient();
using (var stream = client.OpenRead(url))
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
    string line;
    while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
    {
        // do stuff
    }
}

How can I import text from URL?

If "import text from URL" means, in fact, download:

  using System.Net;

  ...

  string address = @"http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10571/10571.txt";
  string newText = null;

  HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(address) as HttpWebRequest;
  // in case you work via some kind of proxy
  request.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials; 

  //TODO: simplest; you way want to use Async versions
  using (var response = request.GetResponse()) {
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())) {
      newText = reader.ReadToEnd().ToLower();
    }
  }

Now newText contains the following text:

 the project gutenberg ebook of the old man of the sea, by w.w. jacobs
 ... 
 title: the old man of the sea
   ship's company, part 11.
 ... 
 an alternative method of locating ebooks:
 http://www.gutenberg.net/gutindex.all

Easiest way to convert a URL to a hyperlink in a C# string?

Regular expressions are probably your friend for this kind of task:

Regex r = new Regex(@"(https?://[^\s]+)");
myString = r.Replace(myString, "<a href=\"$1\">$1</a>");

The regular expression for matching URLs might need a bit of work.

Is it possible to read from a url into a System.IO.Stream object?

VB.Net:

Dim req As WebRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create("url here")
Using stream As Stream = req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream()

End Using

C#:

var req = System.Net.WebRequest.Create("url here");
using (Stream stream = req.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())
{

}

Elegant way parsing URL

Using the URI class you can do this:

var url = new Uri("your url");

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