Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 Quickstart Cookbook

Using the HttpClient and the new System.Net.Http namespaces

HttpClient is a new .NET 4.5 class using the HTTP protocol, similar to WebClient or HttpWebRequest. A highlight of this class is the full support of Async.

In fact it's not such a novelty, since we already had it on the REST Starter Kit and the implementation of the .NET 4.0 We API.

The HttpClient class resides on the System.Net.Http namespace, which is a brand new .NET 4.5 namespace. Basically, we use HttpClient to create HTTP requests, manage the response, and process the response's content.

Some of the most interesting capabilities are:

• Helper methods that create requests and process the responses
• The possibility of defining a default header to apply to all sent messages
• Timeout and cancellation ...