Translate a piece of PHP cURL code to C#

Question

I'm trying to translate this piece of code written to fetch data from basis's website (the activity tracker). The task I want to achieve here is to fetch the access_token returned in the Http response header. There is no problem with the original PHP code, however, there are a few cUrl options I don't know how to map to C#'s WebClient implementation. These options include CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION and CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION.

The detail problem is listed below, here is the piece of PhP code:

    $login_data = array(
        'username' => $this->username,
        'password' => $this->password,
    );

    // Initialize the cURL resource and make login request
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt_array($ch, array(
        CURLOPT_URL => 'https://app.mybasis.com/login',
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => false, //default: true
        CURLOPT_POST => true,
        CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $login_data,
        CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true, // defulat: true
        CURLOPT_HEADER => 1,
        CURLOPT_COOKIESESSION => true,
        CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR => $this->cookie_jar
    ));

Using this code, the result would be: (which contains the access token I need)

HTTP/1.1 100 Continue

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 02:03:47 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Length: 0
Connection: keep-alive
Server: TornadoServer/3.2
Location: https://app.mybasis.com
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Set-Cookie: access_token=f0659120d52f3fde9edfw1d908b81f0f; Domain=.    mybasis.com; expires=Sun, 01 Jan 2040 00:00:00 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: scope=login; Domain=.mybasis.com; expires=Sun, 01 Jan     2040 00:00:00 GMT; Path=/
Set-Cookie: refresh_token=982ff518bfe114e2c03f360f0dfbfke1; Domain=.    mybasis.com; expires=Sun, 01 Jan 2040 00:00:00 GMT; Path=/

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/1.4.3
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 02:03:47 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 5619
Last-Modified: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 04:42:49 GMT
Connection: keep-alive
Vary: Accept-Encoding
ETag: "5359e7c9-15f3"
Accept-Ranges: bytes

However, when I use C# WebClient to communicate with basis like below:

 var data = new NameValueCollection
 {
     { "username", username},
     { "password", password},
 };

 HttpWebResponse response = client.UploadValues("https://app.mybasis.com/login", "POST", data);

 foreach (string name in client.ResponseHeaders.Keys)
 {
     Console.WriteLine(name+"="+client.ResponseHeaders[name]);
 }

I could only get this:

Connection=keep-alive
Vary=Accept-Encoding
Accept-Ranges=bytes
Content-Length=5619
Content-Type=text/html; charset=utf-8
Date=Sun, 22 Jun 2014 02:17:44 GMT
ETag="53f3e7c9-99f3"
Last-Modified=Fri, 25 Apr 2014 04:42:49 GMT
Server=nginx/1.4.3

as response.

Does anyone know why I cannot get the first two Http responses but the third one only?

Answer 1

In order to get the functionality out of C# you are looking for you need to use the Http web Request API within the .NET framework. It should provide the capability you are looking for.

Answer 2

I did the same thing but used the 4.5 HttpClient

        CookieContainer cookies = new CookieContainer();
        HttpClientHandler handler = new HttpClientHandler();
        handler.CookieContainer = cookies;

        HttpClient client = new HttpClient(handler);


        // Create the HttpContent for the form to be posted.
        var requestContent = new FormUrlEncodedContent(new[] {
            new KeyValuePair<string, string>("username", "***"),
            new KeyValuePair<string, string>("password", "***"),
        });

        // Get the response.
        HttpResponseMessage response = await client.PostAsync(
            "https://app.mybasis.com/login",
            requestContent);

        // Get the response content.
        HttpContent responseContent = response.Content;


        Uri uri = new Uri("https://app.mybasis.com/login");
        IEnumerable<Cookie> responseCookies = cookies.GetCookies(uri).Cast<Cookie>();
        foreach (Cookie cookie in responseCookies)
            Console.WriteLine(cookie.Name + ": " + cookie.Value);