Category: 3DW DevTools

Here is a good way to add controls to the page

protected void TextBoxDependentNum_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (Convert.ToInt32(TextBoxDependentNum.Text) > 0)
{
for (int i = 0; i < Convert.ToInt32(TextBoxDependentNum.Text); i++)
{
PanelDependentInfo.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(“<br />”));
TextBox MyTextBox = new TextBox();
Label MyLabel = new Label();
MyLabel.Text = “Dependent Name: “;
MyLabel.ID = “LabelDependentName” + i.ToString();
MyLabel.CssClass = “supercheckboxlabel”;
MyTextBox.ID = “TextBoxDependentName” + i.ToString();
PanelDependentInfo.Controls.Add(MyLabel);
PanelDependentInfo.Controls.Add(MyTextBox);
TextBox MyTextBox2 = new TextBox();
Label MyLabel2 = new Label();
MyLabel2.Text = “Dependent Birthdate: “;
MyLabel2.CssClass = “supercheckboxlabel”;
MyLabel2.ID = “LabelDependentBirthdate” + i.ToString();
MyTextBox2.ID = “TextBoxDependentBirthdate” + i.ToString();
PanelDependentInfo.Controls.Add(MyLabel2);
PanelDependentInfo.Controls.Add(MyTextBox2);
PanelDependentInfo.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(“<br />”));
}
}
}

To secure your api, you need at least the basic authentication. Here is a way to post to the secure api

using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
{

// set the variables for the basic authentication needed
String userName = “myusername”;
String passWord = “mysecretpassword”;
// convert the auth vars into a credential string
string credentials = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(userName + “:” + passWord));

// add the auth string to the request header
client.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.Authorization] = “Basic ” + credentials;
byte[] response =
client.UploadValues(“http://mySweetAPI.aspx”, new NameValueCollection()
{
{ “Title”, “The title of my post” },
{ “Body”, “The body of my post.” }
});

string result = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(response);
LabelResponse.Text = result;
}

To send and recieve JSON using C# in visual studio, you must install the NuGET package : Newtonsoft Json. Then you can use it to send a payload:

// set the text that will be the  json payload as a variable.
var TestJsonMessage = new { id = "8", text = "This is a test of the Newtonsoft package", sentDate = System.DateTime.Now };

// use a web client object
using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
            {
                // convert the variable into JSON
                var dataString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(TestJsonMessage);
                 // add the content type headers !! super important 
                client.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.ContentType, "application/json");

             // set a string to recieve the response, and send the payload to an api
               string theresponse =
                client.UploadString("http://someapiaddress", "POST", dataString);

                // display the response on the page for debugging.
                LabelResponse.Text = theresponse;
            }

I have been tasked to receive a JSON payload to my API that was made to recieve http post variables. We are going to receive the request stream and convert it into a byte array, then DeSerialize the JSON using the Newtonsoft JSON .Net package. When we are finished, we will have a Dictionary object with the contents of the JSON payload. This technique will only work for a single JSON object, as the dictionary can only hold a unique key and value (id:1, text:This is the text)

We will need to get the total number of bytes in the stream to set the array length.

// set a variable to hold the incoming stream.
System.IO.Stream str;

// set two variables for the stream array
Int32 strLen, strRead;

// Create a Stream object.
str = Request.InputStream;
// Find number of bytes in stream.
strLen = Convert.ToInt32(str.Length);
// Create a byte array.
byte[] strArr = new byte[strLen];
// Read stream into byte array.
strRead = str.Read(strArr, 0, strLen);
// change they bytes into UTF8 text
string response = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(strArr);
// convert the JSON object into a .net dictionary
Dictionary<string, string> MyData = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, string>>(response);
// display the JSON payload for debugging
LabelPostVars.Text = response;