calling google Url Shortner API in C#

Question

I want to call the google url shortner API from my C# Console Application, the request I try to implement is:

POST https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener

Answer 1

Google has a NuGet package for using the Urlshortener API. Details can be found here.

Based on this example you would implement it as such:

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using Google.Apis.Services;
using Google.Apis.Urlshortener.v1;
using Google.Apis.Urlshortener.v1.Data;
using Google.Apis.Http;

namespace ConsoleTestBed
{
    class Program
    {
        private const string ApiKey = "YourAPIKey";

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var initializer = new BaseClientService.Initializer
            {
                ApiKey = ApiKey,
                //HttpClientFactory = new ProxySupportedHttpClientFactory()
            };
            var service = new UrlshortenerService(initializer);
            var longUrl = "http://wwww.google.com/";
            var response = service.Url.Insert(new Url { LongUrl = longUrl }).Execute();

            Console.WriteLine($"Short URL: {response.Id}");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

If you are behind a firewall you may need to use a proxy. Below is an implementation of the ProxySupportedHttpClientFactory, which is commented out in the sample above. Credit for this goes to this blog post.

class ProxySupportedHttpClientFactory : HttpClientFactory
{
    private static readonly Uri ProxyAddress 
        = new UriBuilder("http", "YourProxyIP", 80).Uri;
    private static readonly NetworkCredential ProxyCredentials 
        = new NetworkCredential("user", "password", "domain");

    protected override HttpMessageHandler CreateHandler(CreateHttpClientArgs args)
    {
        return new WebRequestHandler
        {
            UseProxy = true,
            UseCookies = false,
            Proxy = new WebProxy(ProxyAddress, false, null, ProxyCredentials)
        };
    }
}