How to request only the HTTP header with C#?

Question

I want to check if the URL of a large file exists. I'm using the code below but it is too slow:

public static bool TryGet(string url) {     try     {         GetHttpResponseHeaders(url);         return true;     }     catch (WebException)     {     }      return false; }  public static Dictionary<string, string> GetHttpResponseHeaders(string url) {     Dictionary<string, string> headers = new Dictionary<string, string>();     WebRequest webRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(url);     using (WebResponse webResponse = webRequest.GetResponse())     {         foreach (string header in webResponse.Headers)         {             headers.Add(header, webResponse.Headers[header]);         }     }      return headers; } 

Answer 1

You need to set:

webRequest.Method = "HEAD"; 

This way the server will respond with the header information only (no content). This is also useful to check if the server accepts certain operations (i.e. compressed data etc.).