How to download a webpage in MetroStyle app (WinRT

Question

I'm creating a MetroStyle app and I want to use a website API that is based on the HTTP Get methods. For instance to login I should download the XML returned by this URL:

websitehost.com/api/login.php?u=username&p=password

The problem is that the new MetroStyle apps won't let me to use many of the methods I've been using for years in .Net so how can I download the returned XML document and parse it?

Answer 1

You should be able to use

var data = await (new System.Net.Http.HttpClient()).GetAsync(new Uri("http://wherever"));

And then do whatever you need with the data, including loading it with XmlDocument or XElement or whatnot.

Answer 2

You might be searching for this:

    public async Task<string> DownloadPageStringAsync(string url)
    {
        HttpClientHandler handler = new HttpClientHandler()
        { UseDefaultCredentials = true, AllowAutoRedirect = true };

        HttpClient client = new HttpClient(handler);
        HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(url);
        response.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
        return await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
    }

Answer 3

You can use either the Windows.Data.Xml.Dom.XmlDocument.LoadFromUriAsync(Uri) method to automatically acquire and parse the XML, or you could manually use a Windows.Networking.BackgroundTransfer.DownloadOperation instance to call the web service and acquire the data, and Windows.Data.Xml.Dom.XmlDocument.LoadXml(string) to parse the data.