How to use HttpClient without async

Question

Hello I'm following to this guide

static async Task<Product> GetProductAsync(string path)
{
    Product product = null;
    HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(path);
    if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
    {
        product = await response.Content.ReadAsAsync<Product>();
    }
    return product;
}

I use this example on my code and I want to know is there any way to use HttpClient without async/await and how can I get only string of response?

Thank you in advance

Solution 1

Of course you can:

public static string Method(string path)
{
   using (var client = new HttpClient())
   {
       var response = client.GetAsync(path).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
       if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
       {
            var responseContent = response.Content;
            return responseContent.ReadAsStringAsync().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
        }
    }
 }

but as @MarcinJuraszek said:

"That may cause deadlocks in ASP.NET and WinForms. Using .Result or .Wait() with TPL should be done with caution".

Here is the example with WebClient.DownloadString

using (var client = new WebClient())
{
    string response = client.DownloadString(path);
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(response))
    {
       ...
    }
}

Solution 2

is there any way to use HttpClient without async/await and how can I get only string of response?

HttpClient was specifically designed for asynchronous use.

If you want to synchronously download a string, use WebClient.DownloadString.

Comments

[MarcinJuraszek]

Just FYI: That may cause deadlocks in ASP.NET and WinForms. Using .Result or .Wait() with TPL should be done with caution.

[spender]

Hah! I just left a comment to this end. The right answer.

[Kumar J.]

Thanks but I just following to the guide that I specified in the question

[Stephen Cleary]

@KumarJ.: Part of following a guide is knowing what needs to be changed.

[aruno]

See this for info about deadlocking stackoverflow.com/questions/32195595/…

[Westley Bennett]

This should be marked as the correct answer. Came across this myself.

[Stephen Cleary]

Interestingly, I recently learned (5 years after this answer) that HttpClient has a synchronous API as of .NET 5.