Execute.HttpRequest

.NET Framework class library used the send HTTP requests and parse the response.

Installation

Quick Start

Make Execute.HttpRequest available in your current Windows PowerShell session using the script below.

[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
iex (irm (irm "https://api.github.com/repos/nstevens1040/Execute.HttpRequest/releases/latest").assets[0].browser_download_url)

Test it.

$r = [Execute.HttpRequest]::Send("https://nstevens1040.github.io/Execute.HttpRequest/")
$r.ResponseText

This should output the response text from nstevens1040.github.io/Execute.HttpRequest.

.NET Framework project in Visual Studio

Clone the repository and build it in Visual Studio. It will create the library file, Execute.HttpRequest.dll in .\Execute.HttpRequest\bin\Debug\Execute.HttpRequest.dll.
Make a reference to Execute.HttpRequest.dll and use the Send method:

using Execute;
using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Net.Http;
namespace JustAnExample
{
    public class Test
    {
        public RetObject Request(CookieCollection cookies, OrderedDictionary headers)
        {
            RetObject response = HttpRequest.Send(
                "https://fakedomain.com/post",
                HttpMethod.Post,
                headers,
                cookies,
                "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
                "data=that&i%27m=sending&via=httpost"
            );
            return response;
        }
    }
}

Windows PowerShell 5.1

Add-Type using the path to the DLL

Clone the repository and build it in Visual Studio. It will create the library file, Execute.HttpRequest.dll in .\Execute.HttpRequest\bin\Debug\Execute.HttpRequest.dll.
Now you can use the Path parameter, specifying the path to the DLL file as the parameter to Add-Type instead of TypeDefinition.

Add-Type -Path .\source\repos\Execute.HttpRequest\Execute.HttpRequest\bin\Debug\Execute.HttpRequest.dll

Either way, once the command completes, you can use the library in PowerShell like this:

$re = [Execute.HttpRequest]::Send(
    "https://fakedomain.com/post",
    [System.Net.Http.HttpMethod]::Post,
    ([ordered]@{"x-csrf-token"="blahblahblahfaketokenblahblah"}),
    $cookies, # CookieContainer example below
    "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
    "data=that&i%27m=sending&via=httpost"
)

Usage

Positional parameters:

Uri

Type	System.String
Position	0
Purpose	The full URI to the resource you are requesting.
Required?	Yes

string uri = @"https://twitter.com/sessions";

Method

Type	System.Net.Http.HttpMethod
Position	1
Purpose	The HTTP method you're using to send the request. Must be one of GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS, or HEAD.
Required?	No (Defaults to GET if not specified)

HttpMethod method = HttpMethod.Post;

Headers

Type	System.Collections.Specialized.OrderedDictionary
Position	2
Purpose	Http headers (not Content-*) to send along with the HTTP request.
Required?	No (HTTP headers Path, User-Agent, and Content-Length are sent automatically)

OrderedDictionary headers = new OrderedDictionary();
headers.Add("x-csrf-token","blahblahblahfaketokenblahblah");

Cookies

Type	System.Net.CookieCollection
Position	3
Purpose	CookieCollection object populated with 1 or more System.Net.Cookie objects to send along with the HTTP request.
Required?	No

CookieCollection cookies = new CookieCollection();
cookies.Add((new Cookie(){
    Name="MyCookieName",
    Value="MyCookieValue",
    Path="/",
    Domain=".fakedomain.com",
    Expires=DateTime.Now.AddDays(365)
}));

Content-Type

Type	System.String
Position	4
Purpose	Mimetype string to include if you're sending data along with your HTTP request.
Required?	No

string contentType = @"application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

Body

Type	System.String
Position	5
Purpose	Data that you're sending along with your HTTP request. HTTP method must be either POST or PUT.
Required?	No

string body = @"Any=string&will=do%2c&so=long&as=it&serves=your&purpose=well";

Return object

The Send method returns and instance of an object with the typename Execute.RetObject.
The object contains 5 properties:

Name	Type	Description
CookieCollection	System.Net.CookieCollection	Cookies returned from HTTP request
HtmlDocument	System.Object	HTML document parsed via HTMLFile COMObject
HttpResponseHeaders	System.Collections.Specialized.OrderedDictionary	Headers returned from HTTP request
HttpResponseMessage	System.Net.Http.HttpResponseMessage	Initial object returned from HttpClient.SendAsync()
ResponseText	System.String	Text body of the HTTP response

The advantage of using this library is the ability to take, for example, the CookieCollection object returned from one request and pipe those cookies into the next request.
To illustrate:

$re = [Execute.HttpRequest]::Send(
    "https://fakedomain.com/post",
    [System.Net.Http.HttpMethod]::Post,
    ([ordered]@{"x-csrf-token"="blahblahblahfaketokenblahblah"}),
    $cookies,
    "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
    "data=that&i%27m=sending&via=httpost"
)
$next = [Execute.HttpRequest]::Send(
    "https://fakedomain.com/someotherresource",
    [System.Net.Http.HttpMethod]::Get,
    $re.HttpResponseHeaders,
    $re.CookieCollection
)