Using httpclient throughout methods without losing session and cookies

Question

I am logging in to a website and trying to get the session and cookies, my cookie container is outside my methods which works find, but I can not get cookies and send them with my requestions, I tried to use the handler the same way as my cookie container but I get an error

a field initializer cannot reference the nonstatic field c#

Here's what I was trying to do

    private CookieContainer cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
    private HttpClientHandler clienthandler = new HttpClientHandler { AllowAutoRedirect = true, UseCookies = true, cookieContainer };
    private HttpClient client = new HttpClient(clienthandler);

So how can I go about using the handler so I can set the session and send the session? Thank you.

Answer 1

Your answer is here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/14439262/2309376

TL;DR You cannot use an instance variable as a constructor parameter for another instance variable. If you make the CookieContainer and the HttpClientHandler static members then the error will go away - but that may have implications on your code.

private static CookieContainer cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
private static HttpClientHandler clienthandler = 
            new HttpClientHandler { 
                       AllowAutoRedirect = true, 
                       UseCookies = true, 
                       CookieContainer = cookieContainer };
private HttpClient client = new HttpClient(clienthandler);

A better solution might be to put all the initialization code into the constructor of the class

class Test
{
    private static CookieContainer cookieContainer;
    private static HttpClientHandler clienthandler;
    private HttpClient client;

    public Test()
    {
        cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
        clienthandler = new HttpClientHandler { AllowAutoRedirect = true, UseCookies = true, CookieContainer = cookieContainer };
        client = new HttpClient(clienthandler);
    }
}