What purposes should I use class StringContent for?

Question

There is StringContent class in System.Net.Http namespace. What purposes should I use class StringContent for?

Do not care about it. If you come across another type in the System.Net.Http namespace which uses the StringContent type, then you will also know what its purpose is.... — , Oct 20 '13 at 15:34
see also [Can't find how to use HttpContent](http://stackoverflow.com/a/21879362) — Michael Freidgeim, Jul 21 '16 at 06:19

score 28 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 24 '19 at 21:27

StringContent class creates a formatted text appropriate for the http server/client communication. After a client request, a server will respond with a HttpResponseMessageand that response will need a content, that can be created with the StringContent class.

Example:

 string csv = "content here";
 var response = new HttpResponseMessage();
 response.Content = new StringContent(csv, Encoding.UTF8, "text/csv");
 response.Content.Headers.Add("Content-Disposition", 
                              "attachment; 
                              filename=yourname.csv");
 return response;

In this example, the server will respond with the content present on the csv variable.

Siva Charan · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-20T15:33:11.847

21

It provides HTTP content based on a string.

Example:

Adding the content on HTTPResponseMessage Object

response.Content = new StringContent("Place response text here");

edited Oct 20 '13 at 15:33

answered Oct 20 '13 at 15:28

Siva Charan

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Could you give me example of using? – mtkachenko Oct 20 '13 at 15:30
@oblomov: Provided an example – Siva Charan Oct 20 '13 at 15:33
1

@SivaCharan what is its purpose? When would one use this? – Robert Kerr Aug 20 '14 at 20:50
I guess StringContent does not support escape characters like \r\n. I am passing those characters in my string, but for some reason it fails @SivaCharan – aMazing Oct 01 '14 at 20:58
@SivaCharan, I do retrieve the string client side? I m not able – Simone Jun 11 '15 at 09:07

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 14 '19 at 15:48

7

Whenever I want to send an object to web api server I use StringContent to add format to HTTP content, for example to add Customer object as json to server:

 public void AddCustomer(Customer customer)
    {
        String apiUrl = "Web api Address";
        HttpClient _client= new HttpClient();

        string JsonCustomer = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(customer);
        StringContent content = new StringContent(JsonCustomer, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
        var response = _client.PostAsync(apiUrl, content).Result;

    }

answered Jul 14 '19 at 15:48

Shojaeddin

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It is best practice to not create a new HttpClient for every request :) – Nora Mar 22 '23 at 13:02
@Nora yeah httpfactory nowadays is so sexy and fun! – Shojaeddin Mar 22 '23 at 16:01

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 20 '13 at 15:41

Every response that is basically text encoded can be represented as StringContent.

Html reponse is text too (with proper content type set):

response.Content = new StringContent("<html><head>...</head><body>....</body></html>")

On the other side, if you download/upload file, that is binary content, so it cannot be represented by string.

What purposes should I use class StringContent for?

4 Answers4

Example:

Linked

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