Chapter 33. System.Net
System.Net
supports a
high-level API for working with common Internet protocols (HTTP being
the principal example) without having to deal with low-level details
(such as the actual protocol format). In addition, this namespace
provides some high-level constructs for working with
networks—TCP/IP in particular.
Most .NET programmers will work with either the
WebClient
type, which provides the most high-level
view of doing HTTP-style request/response communications over a
TCP/IP network (such as the Internet), or else the slightly
lower-level WebRequest
and
WebResponse
types. The choice between the two is
really not all that difficult: for most high-level, protocol-agnostic
work, WebClient
will likely be the preferred
choice. If protocol-specific actions need to be taken (such as
specifying additional headers as part of an HTTP request, for
example), then likely the .NET programmer will want to work with
WebRequest
and WebResponse
. To
be specific, the .NET programmer will work with the concrete derived
types HttpWebRequest
and
HttpWebResponse
.
As shipped, the .NET Framework Class Library provides implementations
for three URI protocol schemes: HTTP, HTTPS, and files (http:,
https:, and file:, respectively). For support of other URI types
(such as FTP, NNTP, or POP3), a new derivative of
WebRequest
and WebResponse
must
be written, an Abstract Factory type implementing the
IWebRequestCreate
interface must be created, and an instance of it (along with the protocol ...
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