Develop Reference

Web Service Authorization header returning odd characters in service

I have written a WPF application that sends a POST WebHTTPRequest to a WCF service. The service required windows credentials to perform operations on the server. When the service receives the HTTP request, it is unable to parse the Authorization header.
The POST request begins like this.
HttpWebRequest req = WebRequest.CreateHttp(url);
req.ContentType = "application/json;charset=UTF-8";
req.Accept = "application/json";
req.Headers.Add("Authorization", Base64Encode(Details.username + ":" + Details.password + ":" + Details.domain));
req.Method = "POST";
byte[] reqBytes = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(body.ToString());
And is received on the service like this
IncomingWebRequestContext request = WebOperationContext.Current.IncomingRequest;
WebHeaderCollection headers = request.Headers;
if (headers["Authorization"] != null)
{
cred = headers["Authorization"];
} else
{
HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(result);
return;
}
I print the "cred" variable to a log file and what I get begins something like this "敎潧楴瑡⁥䥙䝉䅺䝙" which, quite clearly, is wrong. Can anybody tell me why I'm getting this output as opposed to the input consisting of the English characters I sent the request with?

The problem is that you encoded a UTF-8 encoded string into Base64.
You specified that the charset type for your JSON file is UTF-8 here:
req.ContentType = "application/json;charset=UTF-8";
So when you tried to encode your Authentication into Base64 it would have ruined your string.
req.Headers.Add("Authorization", Base64Encode(Details.username + ":" + Details.password + ":" + Details.domain));
Try a different way of encoding the string

foreign characters; language translation proxy application

I am working on a C# application that sends an http request to a language translation server that converts Norwegian to English and vice versa. The translation results I'm getting back suggest that certain Norwegian characters like "Ø" are being garbled. Stepping through the code, I found this character being garbled in the URI members of the HttpWebRequest class, so I've explicitly specified the URI (instead of just depending on HTTPWebRequest class to do it for me). But my translation result remains garbled. I suspect that the StreamReader is the culprit now, and have tried UTF8, Unicode, ASCII encoding on a Norwegian machine but to no avail. Please advise. Thank you in advance. The code for the function is pasted below.
Other details:
Example of input content: følger;
Example of translation result: ? lger;
Input and output are in unicode text files.
public string Translate(string requestquery)
{
string translatedresult = "";
Uri uri = new Uri(requestquery, true); //this appears to have solved the garbled URI
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uri);
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
string charSet = response.CharacterSet;
Stream ReceiveStream = response.GetResponseStream();
//I've tried all sorts of encoding here and even changing the machine locale
string contentEncoding = response.ContentEncoding;
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ReceiveStream, Encoding.UTF8, false);
translatedresult = sr.ReadToEnd();
sr.Close();
return translatedresult;
}

C# Escape Plus Sign (+) in POST using HttpWebRequest

I'm having issues to send POST data that includes characteres like "+" in the password field,
string postData = String.Format("username={0}&password={1}", "anyname", "+13Gt2");
I'm using HttpWebRequest and a webbrowser to see the results, and when I try to log in from my C# WinForms using HttpWebRequest to POST data to the website, it tells me that password is incorrect. (in the source code[richTexbox1] and the webBrowser1). Trying it with another account of mine, that does not contain '+' character, it lets me log in correctly (using array of bytes and writing it to the stream)
byte[] byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(postData); //get the data
request.Method = "POST";
request.Accept = "text/html";
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
Stream newStream = request.GetRequestStream(); //open connection
newStream.Write(byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length); // Send the data.
newStream.Close(); //this works well if user does not includes symbols
From this Question I found that HttpUtility.UrlEncode() is the solution to escape illegal characters, but I can't find out how to use it correctly, my question is, after url-encoding my POST data with urlEncode() how do I send the data to my request correctly?
This is how I've been trying for HOURS to make it work, but no luck,
First method
string urlEncoded = HttpUtility.UrlEncode(postData, ASCIIEncoding.ASCII);
//request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.ContentLength = urlEncoded.Length;
StreamWriter wr = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream(),ASCIIEncoding.ASCII);
wr.Write(urlEncoded); //server returns for wrong password.
wr.Close();
Second method
byte[] urlEncodedArray = HttpUtility.UrlEncodeToBytes(postData,ASCIIEncoding.ASCII);
Stream newStream = request.GetRequestStream(); //open connection
newStream.Write(urlEncodedArray, 0, urlEncodedArray.Length); // Send the data.
newStream.Close(); //The server tells me the same thing..
I think I'm doing wrong on how the url-encoded must be sent to the request, I really ask for some help please, I searched through google and couldn't find more info about how to send encoded url to an HttpWebRequest.. I appreciate your time and attention, hope you can help me. Thank you.

I found my answer using Uri.EscapeDataString it exactly solved my problem, but somehow I couldn't do it with HttpUtility.UrlEncode. Stackoverflowing around, I found this question that is about urlEncode method, in msdn it documentation tells that:
Encodes a URL string.
But I know now that is wrong if used to encode POST data (#Marvin, #Polity, thanks for the correction). After discarding it, I tried the following:
string postData = String.Format("username={0}&password={1}", "anyname", Uri.EscapeDataString("+13Gt2"));
The POST data is converted into:
// **Output
string username = anyname;
string password = %2B13Gt2;
Uri.EscapeDataString in msdn says the following:
Converts a string to its escaped representation.
I think this what I was looking for, when I tried the above, I could POST correctly whenever there's data including the '+' characters in the formdata, but somehow there's much to learn about them.
This link is really helpful.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/yangxind/archive/2006/11/09/don-t-use-net-system-uri-unescapedatastring-in-url-decoding.aspx
Thanks a lot for the answers and your time, I appreciate it very much. Regards mates.

I'd recommend you a WebClient. Will shorten your code and take care of encoding and stuff:
using (var client = new WebClient())
{
var values = new NameValueCollection
{
{ "username", "anyname" },
{ "password", "+13Gt2" },
};
var url = "http://foo.com";
var result = client.UploadValues(url, values);
}

the postdata you are sending should NOT be URL encoded! it's formdata, not the URL
string url = #"http://localhost/WebApp/AddService.asmx/Add";
string postData = "x=6&y=8";
WebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(url);
HttpWebRequest httpReq = (HttpWebRequest)req;
httpReq.Method = WebRequestMethods.Http.Post;
httpReq.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
Stream s = httpReq.GetRequestStream();
StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(s,Encoding.ASCII);
sw.Write(postData);
sw.Close();
HttpWebResponse httpResp =
(HttpWebResponse)httpReq.GetResponse();
s = httpResp.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(s, Encoding.ASCII);
Console.WriteLine(sr.ReadToEnd());
This uses the System.Text.Encoding.ASCII to encode the postdata.
Hope this helps,

"The format of the URI could not be determined" with WebRequest

I'm trying to perform a POST to a site using a WebRequest in C#. The site I'm posting to is an SMS site, and the messagetext is part of the URL. To avoid spaces in the URL I'm calling HttpUtility.Encode() to URL encode it.
But I keep getting an URIFormatException - "Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined" - when I use code similar to this:
string url = "http://www.stackoverflow.com?question=a sentence with spaces";
string encoded = HttpUtility.UrlEncode(url);
WebRequest r = WebRequest.Create(encoded);
r.Method = "POST";
r.ContentLength = encoded.Length;
WebResponse response = r.GetResponse();
The exception occurs when I call WebRequest.Create().
What am I doing wrong?

You should only encode the argument, not the entire url, so try:
string url = "http://www.stackoverflow.com?question=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode("a sentence with spaces");
WebRequest r = WebRequest.Create(url);
r.Method = "POST";
r.ContentLength = encoded.Length;
WebResponse response = r.GetResponse();
Encoding the entire url would mean the :// and the ? get encoded too. The encoded string is then no longer a valid url.

UrlEncode should only be used on the query string. Try this:
string query = "a sentence with spaces";
string encoded = "http://www.stackoverflow.com/?question=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(query);
The current version of your code is urlencoding the slashes and colon in the URL, which is confusing webrequest.

C# to PHP base64 encode/decode

So I have this c# application that needs to ping my web server thats running linux/php stack.
I am having problems with the c# way of base 64 encoding bytes.
my c# code is like:
byte[] encbuff = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("the string");
String enc = Convert.ToBase64String(encbuff);
and php side:
$data = $_REQUEST['in'];
$raw = base64_decode($data);
with larger strings 100+ chars it fails.
I think this is due to c# adding '+'s in the encoding but not sure.
any clues

You should probably URL Encode your Base64 string on the C# side before you send it.
And URL Decode it on the php side prior to base64 decoding it.
C# side
byte[] encbuff = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("the string");
string enc = Convert.ToBase64String(encbuff);
string urlenc = Server.UrlEncode(enc);
and php side:
$data = $_REQUEST['in'];
$decdata = urldecode($data);
$raw = base64_decode($decdata);

Note that + is a valid character in base64 encoding, but when used in URLs it is often translated back to a space. This space may be confusing your PHP base64_decode function.
You have two approaches to solving this problem:
Use %-encoding to encode the + character before it leaves your C# application.
In your PHP application, translate space characters back to + before passing to base64_decode.
The first option is probably your better choice.

This seems to work , replacing + with %2B...
private string HTTPPost(string URL, Dictionary<string, string> FormData)
{
UTF8Encoding UTF8encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
string postData = "";
foreach (KeyValuePair<String, String> entry in FormData)
{
postData += entry.Key + "=" + entry.Value + "&";
}
postData = postData.Remove(postData.Length - 1);
//urlencode replace (+) with (%2B) so it will not be changed to space ( )
postData = postData.Replace("+", "%2B");
byte[] data = UTF8encoding.GetBytes(postData);
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(URL);
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
request.ContentLength = data.Length;
Stream strm = request.GetRequestStream();
// Send the data.
strm.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
strm.Close();
WebResponse rsp = null;
// Send the data to the webserver
rsp = request.GetResponse();
StreamReader rspStream = new StreamReader(rsp.GetResponseStream());
string response = rspStream.ReadToEnd();
return response;
}

Convert.ToBase64String doesn't seem to add anything extra as far as I can see. For instance:
byte[] bytes = new byte[1000];
Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToBase64String(bytes));
The above code prints out a load of AAAAs with == at the end, which is correct.
My guess is that $data on the PHP side doesn't contain what enc did on the C# side - check them against each other.

in c#
this is a <B>long</b>string. and lets make this a3214 ad0-3214 0czcx 909340 zxci 0324#$##$%%13244513123
turns into
dGhpcyBpcyBhIDxCPmxvbmc8L2I+c3RyaW5nLiBhbmQgbGV0cyBtYWtlIHRoaXMgYTMyMTQgYWQwLTMyMTQgMGN6Y3ggOTA5MzQwIHp4Y2kgMDMyNCMkQCMkJSUxMzI0NDUxMzEyMw==
for me. and i think that + is breaking it all.

The PHP side should be:
$data = $_REQUEST['in'];
// $decdata = urldecode($data);
$raw = base64_decode($decdata);
The $_REQUEST should already be URLdecoded.