Unirest is a set of lightweight HTTP libraries available in PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, Objective-C. This is a port of the Java library to .NET, and is done independently and without affiliation to the original Unirest project.
Is easy as pie. Kidding. It's as easy as downloading from NuGet.
So you're probably wondering how using Unirest makes creating requests in .NET easier, here is a basic POST request that will explain everything:
HttpResponse<MyClass> jsonResponse = Unirest.post("http://httpbin.org/post")
.header("accept", "application/json")
.field("parameter", "value")
.field("foo", "bar")
.asJson<MyClass>();Requests are made when as[Type]() is invoked, possible types include Json, Binary, String. If the request supports this, a body can be passed along with .body(String) or body<T>(T) to serialize an arbitary object to JSON. If you already have a dictionary of parameters or do not wish to use seperate field methods for each one there is a .fields(Dictionary<string, object> parameters) method that will serialize each key - value to form parameters on your request.
.headers(Dictionary<string, string> headers) is also supported in replacement of multiple header methods.
Sometimes, well most of the time, you want your application to be asynchronous and not block, Unirest supports this in .NET with the TPL pattern and async/await:
Task<HttpResponse<MyClass>> myClassTask = Unirest.post("http://httpbin.org/post")
.header("accept", "application/json")
.field("param1", "value1")
.field("param2", "value2")
.asJsonAsync<MyClass>();Creating multipart requests with .NET is trivial, simply pass along a Stream Object as a field:
HttpResponse<MyClass> myClass = Unirest.post("http://httpbin.org/post")
.header("accept", "application/json")
.field("parameter", "value")
.field("file", new MemoryStream("/tmp/file"))
.asJson<MyClass>();HttpResponse<MyClass> myClass = Unirest.post("http://httpbin.org/post")
.header("accept", "application/json")
.body("{\"parameter\":\"value\", \"foo\":\"bar\"}")
.asJson<MyClass>();The .NET Unirest library follows the builder style conventions. You start building your request by creating a HttpRequest object using one of the following:
HttpRequest request = Unirest.get(String url);
HttpRequest request = Unirest.post(String url);
HttpRequest request = Unirest.put(String url);
HttpRequest request = Unirest.patch(String url);
HttpRequest request = Unirest.delete(String url);Upon recieving a response Unirest returns the result in the form of an Object, this object should always have the same keys for each language regarding to the response details.
.Code
HTTP Response Status Code (Example 200)
.Headers
HTTP Response Headers
.Body
Parsed response body where applicable, for example JSON responses are parsed to Objects / Associative Arrays.
.Raw
Un-parsed response body
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