Reading from API using VB.NET

Question

I was hoping someone could tell me how to structure a HttpWebRequest in VB.NET to be able to retrieve information using the following API: https://api.developer.lifx.com/docs/list-lights

The code I am interested in replicating is here (in Python):

import requests

token = "YOUR_APP_TOKEN"

headers = {
    "Authorization": "Bearer %s" % token,
}

response = requests.get('https://api.lifx.com/v1/lights/all', headers=headers)

A cURL version of this can be seen here:

curl "https://api.lifx.com/v1/lights/all" \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APP_TOKEN"

My question is: how do I do this in VB.NET? Would a HttpWebRequest be the way to go? If so, could you please assist me by providing some example code?

I am hoping to retrieve a list of all my lights.

Answer 1

That is correct; A HTTP Request would be the way to go. The python sample code you provided mentions headers which can also be done using a WebHeaderCollection. One other way to do it is using a web client.

Web client (No headers)

Dim client As New WebClient
Dim data As String = client.DownloadString("https://api.lifx.com/v1/lights/all")

With Headers using WebRequest

'String for token
Dim tokenString As String = "YOUR_APP_TOKEN"
'Stream for the responce
Dim responseStream As System.IO.Stream
'Stream reader to read the stream to a string
Dim stringStreamReader As System.IO.StreamReader
'String to be read to
Dim responseString As String
'The webrequest that is querying
Dim webRequest As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create("https://api.lifx.com/v1/lights/all")
'The collection of headers
Dim webHeaderCollection As WebHeaderCollection = webRequest.Headers
'Adding a header
webHeaderCollection.Add("Authorization:Bearer " + tokenString)
'The web responce
Dim webResponce As HttpWebResponse = CType(webRequest.GetResponse(), HttpWebResponse)
'Reading the web responce to a stream
responseStream = webResponce.GetResponseStream()
'Initializing the stream reader with our stream
stringStreamReader = New StreamReader(responseStream)
'Reading the stream to our string
responseString = stringStreamReader.ReadToEnd.ToString
'Ending the web responce
webResponce.Close()