Consume Web API Using WebClient In C#

In this blog, we will learn how to consume a Web API using a web client in C#.

We can Get and Post data from a Web API using Web client. Web client provides common methods for sending and receiving data from Server. Here, I have not used any authentication and authorization mechanism. This is simple - it's just for sending and receiving data from API.

 

First, you have to assign the API Endpoint on a variable. Here, I have created one static class to assign the API Endpoint. 

public static class StaticItems
{
   public static string EndPoint = "http://localhost:8088/api/";
}

Here, I have also created a class of name City.

public class CityInfo
{
   public int CityID { get; set; }
   public int CountryID { get; set; }
   public int StateID { get; set; }
   public string Name { get; set; }
   public decimal Latitude { get; set; }
   public decimal Longitude { get; set; }
}

Receiving Data from API

 

This function retrieves data from API. Here, this function returns the list of cities. The data received from the API is in JSON format so I have deserialized that JSON data to an Object List. The Keyword DownloadString is used for retrieving data from Server.

public List < CityInfo > CityGet() {
    try {
        using(WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) {
            webClient.BaseAddress = StaticItems.EndPoint;
            var json = webClient.DownloadString("City/CityGetForDDL");
            var list = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject < List < CityInfo >> (json);
            return list.ToList();
        }
    } catch (WebException ex) {
        throw ex;
    }
}

Sending Data to Api

 

This function sends data to the API. Here, I have converted the object of the city into JSON.

 

The keyword UploadString is used for sending data to the Server. 

public ReturnMessageInfo CitySave(CityInfo city) {
    ReturnMessageInfo result = new ReturnMessageInfo();
    try {
        using(WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) {
            webClient.BaseAddress = StaticItems.EndPoint;
            var url = "City/CityAddUpdate";
            webClient.Headers.Add("user-agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.3705;)");
            webClient.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.ContentType] = "application/json";
            string data = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(city);
            var response = webClient.UploadString(url, data);
            result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject < ReturnMessageInfo > (response);
            return result;
        }
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        throw ex;
    }
}

Conclusion

 

Web client is easy to use for consuming the Web API. You can also use httpClient instead of WebClient. I hope you learned a little more about Web client and how a Web Client is used for sending and receiving data from Web API in C#. Let me know your queries in the comments section.