how to read httpWebRequest's request stream in c#, i got error" the stream is not readable"?

Question

I want to read the request stream from a custom HttpWebRequest class that inherits from HttpWebRequest and I have tried to read the request stream in different stages but still not sure how to achieve that in the class.

This custom HttpWebRequest is used to serialize a soap message and I want to know what request has been sent in string format. I also implemented custom HttpRequestCreator, HttpWebResponse but still can't find a place/stage from which I can read the request stream.

If i output everything in a MemoryStream then copy the content to request stream, anyone knows which stage I can do it? In the constructor, BeginGetRequestStream, EndGetRequestStream or GetRequestStream?

Answer 1

The "stream is not readable" will result if there is an error return code, like 404, 503, 401, and so on. It's likely you haven't checked your status code.

Something like this works if the content is text:

public string DownloadString(string uri, out int status)
{
    string result= null;
    status = 0;
    HttpWebResponse response= null;
    try
    {
        HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest) HttpWebRequest.Create(uri);
        // augment the request here: headers (Referer, User-Agent, etc)
        //     CookieContainer, Accept, etc.
        response= (HttpWebResponse) request.GetResponse();
        Encoding responseEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(response.CharacterSet);
        using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), responseEncoding))
        {
            result = sr.ReadToEnd();
        }
        status = (int) response.StatusCode;
    }
    catch (WebException wexc1)
    {
        // any statusCode other than 200 gets caught here
        if(wexc1.Status == WebExceptionStatus.ProtocolError)
        {
            // can also get the decription: 
            //  ((HttpWebResponse)wexc1.Response).StatusDescription;
            status = (int) ((HttpWebResponse)wexc1.Response).StatusCode;
        }
    }
    finally
    {
        if (response!= null)
            response.Close();
    }
    return result;
}