How to get status code from webclient?

Question

I am using the WebClient class to post some data to a web form. I would like to get the response status code of the form submission. So far I\'ve found out how

Answer 1

There is a way to do it using reflection. It works with .NET 4.0. It accesses a private field and may not work in other versions of .NET without modifications.

I have no idea why Microsoft did not expose this field with a property.

private static int GetStatusCode(WebClient client, out string statusDescription)
{
    FieldInfo responseField = client.GetType().GetField("m_WebResponse", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);

    if (responseField != null)
    {
        HttpWebResponse response = responseField.GetValue(client) as HttpWebResponse;

        if (response != null)
        {
            statusDescription = response.StatusDescription;
            return (int)response.StatusCode;
        }
    }

    statusDescription = null;
    return 0;
}