How can I read an Http response stream twice in C#?

Question

I am trying to read an Http response stream twice via the following:

HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse(); stream = response.GetResponseStream(); RssReader reader = new RssReader(stream); do {   element = reader.Read();   if (element is RssChannel)   {     feed.Channels.Add((RssChannel)element);   } } while (element != null);  StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(stream); feed._FeedRawData = sr.ReadToEnd(); 

However when the StreamReader code executes there is no data returned because the stream has now reached the end. I tried to reset the stream via stream.Position = 0 but this throws an exception (I think because the stream can't have its position changed manually).

Basically, I would like to parse the stream for XML and have access to the raw data (in string format).

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Copy it into a new MemoryStream first. Then you can re-read the MemoryStream as many times as you like:

Stream responseStream = CopyAndClose(resp.GetResponseStream()); // Do something with the stream responseStream.Position = 0; // Do something with the stream again   private static Stream CopyAndClose(Stream inputStream) {     const int readSize = 256;     byte[] buffer = new byte[readSize];     MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();      int count = inputStream.Read(buffer, 0, readSize);     while (count > 0)     {         ms.Write(buffer, 0, count);         count = inputStream.Read(buffer, 0, readSize);     }     ms.Position = 0;     inputStream.Close();     return ms; }