how to wait until a web request with HttpWebRequest is finished?

Question

I am doing a web request to login in a my web services and I have a problem. I need to wait until the login is finished before end the method that launchs the login because I need to return a boolean value that represents if the login was correct or not. In the following code I put a comment where I need wait for the result of "httpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse(...)"

public async Task<bool> login(string user, string passwrd)
{
    mLoginData.setUserName(user);
    mLoginData.setPasswd(passwrd);

    string serviceURL = mBaseURL + "/pwpcloud/service/user/login";

    //build the REST request
    // HTTP web request
    var httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(serviceURL);
    httpWebRequest.ContentType = "application/json";
    httpWebRequest.Method = "POST";

    // Write the request Asynchronously 
    using (var stream = await Task.Factory.FromAsync<Stream>(httpWebRequest.BeginGetRequestStream, httpWebRequest.EndGetRequestStream, null))
    {

        string parameters = "{\"username\":\"" + user + "\",\"password\":\"" + passwrd + "\"}";
        byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(parameters);

        // Write the bytes to the stream
        await stream.WriteAsync(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
    }
    //httpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback(OnGettingLoginResponse), httpWebRequest);
    httpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse(r =>
       {
           using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)httpWebRequest.EndGetResponse(r))
           {
               string data;

               // Read the response into a Stream object. 
               Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream();
               using (var reader = new StreamReader(responseStream))
               {
                   data = reader.ReadToEnd();
               }
               responseStream.Close();
               if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK)
               {
                   dynamic jsonData = JObject.Parse(data);
                   string token = jsonData.token;
                   mLoginData.setToken(token);
                   string userId = jsonData.userId;
                   mLoginData.setUserID(userId);
                   mLoginData.setLogged(true);
                   //guardamos los valores en el isolatedStorageSettings para que persistan. 
                   App.settings.Clear();
                   App.settings.Add("userId", mLoginData.getUserID());
                   App.settings.Add("token", mLoginData.getToken());
                   App.settings.Add("userName", mLoginData.getUserName());
                   App.settings.Add("passwd", mLoginData.getPasswd());
                   App.settings.Add("logged", mLoginData.isLogged());
                   App.settings.Save();
               }
               else
               {
                   if (CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture.Name.ToString().Contains("ES"))
                   {
                       if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized || response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.BadRequest)
                       {
                           MessageBox.Show("Usuario o contraseña incorrectos");
                       }
                       else
                       {
                           MessageBox.Show("Error de conexión.");
                       }
                   }
                   else
                   {
                       if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized || response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.BadRequest)
                       {
                           MessageBox.Show("User or password were incorrect");
                       }
                       else
                       {
                           MessageBox.Show("NNetwork connection error");
                       }
                   }
               }
           }
       }, null);
    //here i need wait for the result of the webrequest to return true if the login was successfull.
    return mLoginData.isLogged();
}

I read a lot about this buf I didn't find the solution. Thanks everyone!!!

Answer 1

Just use the newer style of asynchrony:

using (var response = (HttpWebResponse) await request.GetResponseAsync())
{
    ...
}

You shouldn't need to call BeginXXX much now - certainly the Microsoft APIs have pretty universally added support for the Task-based Asynchronous Pattern.

If GetResponseAsync isn't available, use Task.Factory.FromAsync just as you have for BeginRequestStream:

var responseTask = Task.Factory.FromAsync<WebResponse>
                                      (httpWebRequest.BeginGetResponse,
                                       httpWebRequest.EndGetResponse,
                                       null);
using (var response = (HttpWebResponse) await responseTask)
{
}

Note that because you're writing an async method, the initial method call will still finish quickly - but it will return a Task<bool> which will only complete when the async operation has completed. So you should probably be awaiting the result in the calling code, too.