Is there a C# rest client that handles cookies?

Question

I'm attempting to build a c# console application to test a rest service that uses cookies for various things. I have been attempting to use hammock but it does not appear to manage cookies.

Is there a c# rest client that manages cookies?

are u tryig to automate the test on just test? Fiddler has an option to send raw HTTP which u can use for REST as well. — Aliostad, Nov 08 '10 at 17:10
@Alostad - No my goal is to create a client library for the rest service that I can eventually hook into nunit to run automated tests. This will also serve as base for a Silverlight client. — Aaron Carlson, Nov 08 '10 at 18:13

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 02 '12 at 19:49

Additionally, RestSharp supports automatic cookie management. It does so internally by using HttpWebRequest and using CookieContainer. To support this, you simply need to set the IRestClient.CookieContainer property when creating your shared IRestClient:

var client = new RestClient("http://api.server.com/")
{
    CookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
};

Once you've done this, subsequent calls to Execute/Execute<T>/ExecuteAsync/ExecuteAsync<T> will handle cookies as expected.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 18 '11 at 12:37

You can handle cookies on Hammock. Although It does not look natural in code, it works. You have to manually save the cookies on each response, and inyect them on each subsequent request. This is part of the code that I use on a class that consumes a web service. On other methods, instead of calling RestClient.Request(), I call _Request() so it handles the cookies every time I make one request.

using System.Collections.Specialized;
using Hammock;
using System.Net;

static class Server {
    private static RestClient Client;
    private static NameValueCollection Cookies;
    private static string ServerUrl = "http://www.yourtarget.com/api"; 

    private static RestResponse _Request(RestRequest request) {
        //If there was cookies on our accumulator...
        if (Cookies != null)
        {
            // inyect them on the request
            foreach (string Key in Cookies.AllKeys)
            request.AddCookie(new Uri(ServerUrl), Key, Cookies[Key]);
        }

        // make the request
        RestResponse response = Client.Request(request);

        // if the Set-Cookie header is set, we have to save the cookies from the server.
        string[] SetCookie = response.Headers.GetValues("Set-Cookie");

        //check if the set cookie header has something
        if (SetCookie.Length > 0)
        {
            // if it has, save them for future requests
            Cookies = response.Cookies;
        }

        // return the response to extract content
        return response;
    }
}

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

1

Can you use the HttpWebReqest? If so, that has cookie handling with the CookieContainer class.

See this related question for more details: Automatic Cookie Handling C#/.NET HttpWebRequest+HttpWebResponse

edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

Community

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1

answered Nov 08 '10 at 17:12

Steve

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I've been looking into using the HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse objects but they are a little lower level then I was hoping to deal with. For instance, Hammock has an easy api to post data where it looks like I'll have to build some infrastructure to do this with HttpWebReqeust and HttpWebResponse. – Aaron Carlson Nov 08 '10 at 18:19
I ended up using the HttpWebRequest with the CookieContainer like you suggested. – Aaron Carlson Nov 10 '10 at 19:17

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Personally I think Steve Haigh's answer is much easier, but if you're stubborn enough you can use a WebClient and make use of the Headers and ResponseHeaders property. The rest requests themselves then become much simpler and higher level, but the cookie manipulation becomes more painful.

This strikes me as a poor trade, but I am suggesting it as a possible alternative to Steve's suggestion, which you did not like.

You may find Jim's WebClient class helpful as a starting point, if you want to write a WebClient wrapper class to do this for you.

Is there a C# rest client that handles cookies?

4 Answers4