What difference is there between WebClient and HTTPWebRequest classes in .NET?

Question

What difference is there between the WebClient and the HttpWebRequest classes in .NET? They both do very similar things. In fact, why weren't they merged into one class (too many methods/variables etc may be one reason but there are other classes in .NET which breaks that rule).

Thanks.

Solution 1

WebClient is a higher-level abstraction built on top of HttpWebRequest to simplify the most common tasks. For instance, if you want to get the content out of an HttpWebResponse, you have to read from the response stream:

var http = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://example.com");
var response = http.GetResponse();

var stream = response.GetResponseStream();
var sr = new StreamReader(stream);
var content = sr.ReadToEnd();

With WebClient, you just do DownloadString:

var client = new WebClient();
var content = client.DownloadString("http://example.com");

Note: I left out the using statements from both examples for brevity. You should definitely take care to dispose your web request objects properly.

In general, WebClient is good for quick and dirty simple requests and HttpWebRequest is good for when you need more control over the entire request.

Solution 2

Also WebClient doesn't have timeout property. And that's the problem, because dafault value is 100 seconds and that's too much to indicate if there's no Internet connection.

Workaround for that problem is here https://stackoverflow.com/a/3052637/1303422

Solution 3

I know its too longtime to reply but just as an information purpose for future readers:

WebRequest

System.Object
    System.MarshalByRefObject
        System.Net.WebRequest

The WebRequest is an abstract base class. So you actually don't use it directly. You use it through it derived classes - HttpWebRequest and FileWebRequest.

You use Create method of WebRequest to create an instance of WebRequest. GetResponseStream returns data stream.

There are also FileWebRequest and FtpWebRequest classes that inherit from WebRequest. Normally, you would use WebRequest to, well, make a request and convert the return to either HttpWebRequest, FileWebRequest or FtpWebRequest, depend on your request. Below is an example:

Example:

var _request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("http://stackoverflow.com");
var _response = (HttpWebResponse)_request.GetResponse();

WebClient

System.Object
        System.MarshalByRefObject
            System.ComponentModel.Component
                System.Net.WebClient

WebClient provides common operations to sending and receiving data from a resource identified by a URI. Simply, it’s a higher-level abstraction of HttpWebRequest. This ‘common operations’ is what differentiate WebClient from HttpWebRequest, as also shown in the sample below:

Example:

var _client = new WebClient();
var _stackContent = _client.DownloadString("http://stackoverflow.com");

There are also DownloadData and DownloadFile operations under WebClient instance. These common operations also simplify code of what we would normally do with HttpWebRequest. Using HttpWebRequest, we have to get the response of our request, instantiate StreamReader to read the response and finally, convert the result to whatever type we expect. With WebClient, we just simply call DownloadData, DownloadFile or DownloadString.

However, keep in mind that WebClient.DownloadString doesn’t consider the encoding of the resource you requesting. So, you would probably end up receiving weird characters if you don’t specify an encoding.

NOTE: Basically "WebClient takes few lines of code as compared to WebRequest"

Comments

[John Sheehan]

The above is fact, the following is opinion: both are terrible because HttpWebRequest is broken. It handles basic auth wrong, require weird workarounds like ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false, do other non-standard things and have many quirks and idiosyncrasies. I started RestSharp to help smooth out those problems.

[feroze]

Also note that WebClient is a component, so you can drag/drop it from VS tools window into your form and be able to use it there.

[Funka]

Anyone coming across this like I have just now, note there is a new player on the field called HttpClient that comes with .NET 4.5 that may (or may not?) solve some of the above hassles...

[Jade]

RestSharp is now actively maintained.

[Eric]

WebClient implements IDisposable, so you should consider doing using (WebClient client = new WebClient())

[Andriy F.]

Question was what's the difference. One of the differences is that WebClient doesn't have timeout property while HttpWebRequest does.

[Kartiikeya]

Does WebClient Class Uses Post/Get Method ..? Please Provide a Link to describe

[SHEKHAR SHETE]

WebRequest allows us to add the Request Method type i.e Get/Post with a property METHOD. where as WebClient do not have any Method type adding functionality.

[user3613932]

Note As per this answer, both the WebClient and HttpWebRequest way are now deprecated.

[Jeff B]

@SHEKHARSHETE I was able to use webClient.UploadData(url, "POST", bytes) to specify the method (see MSDN docs).

[Cdaragorn]

Neither of them are deprecated. There is just a new way you can do things. You should still consider them all and pick the one that best meets your needs.

[user1451111]

@user3613932 a little correction: The answer you linked mention WebClient and HttpWebRequest as legacy, not deprecated.