How to Consume a Restful Service in .NET? [closed]

Question

What are my options to consume a RESTful service using the .Net framework? When is WCF(using the WebChannelFactory) more preferable to HttpClient?

Answer 1

I think WCF is preferable whenever you want the abstraction it provides.

WCF provides an abstraction over the specific messaging and communication protocols being employed. Even only considering a RESTful scenario, you can more easily adapt to different message formats (XML, JSON, HTML).

WCF also provides configuration mechanisms, extensibility points, and instrumentation.

Answer 2

There are few different ways of consuming REST services in .NET:

• Plain .NET HTTP request
• WCF mechanisms
• HttpClient (recommended, nuget package)
• Other libraries (RestSharp, Hammock, etc.)

I've wrote a blog post that demonstrates first three options.

As of consuming through WCF or HttpClient I think it makes sense to read this SO question to understand the potential of REST services. When you consume a REST service via WCF you cannot use all that power.

Answer 3

The hammock project makes it very easy to consume RESTful services, you can use it to easily create the required http requests you need:

https://github.com/danielcrenna/hammock

Answer 4

I just released a REST client here today. You can download the Git repo to see the samples. https://bitbucket.org/MelbourneDeveloper/restclient-.net

• Open Source. (MIT License)
• Markup language agnostic. (Supports JSON, SOAP and other markup languages)
• Use strong types with REST.
• Supports Android, iOS, Windows 10, Windows 10 Phone, Silverlight, .NET, .NET Core.
• Incredibly simple.
• Async friendly (uses async, await keywords).

When is WCF(using the WebChannelFactory) more preferable to HttpClient?

That is a very loaded question. WCF is a very large collection of technologies that allow you to communicate with a number of different protocols, authentication methods, and so on. It is very configurable, but REST is simple and supported by nearly all technologies available. If you write a REST service, chances are that nearly any app could consume it. Really, the question is about who your target audience is.

Answer 5

Microsoft`s newest HTTP library is here https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Net.Http and I have a blog post showing how to use it here.

You would never want to use WebChannelFactory against a RESTful service. The coupling generated by WebChannelFactory defeats the point of REST.

Answer 6

This is one technique of calling or consuming rest webservice in asp.net c#

var client  = new RestClient("url"); 
var request = new RestRequest(Method.POST);

request.AddHeader("content-type", "application/json");
request.AddParameter("application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
    "type=password& user_id=[e-mail]",ParameterType.RequestBody);

IRestResponse response = client.Execute(request);