Fake a form submission with C# WebClient

Question

I need to call a web and retrieve the resulting data from the model in my asp.net mvc application. When accessed on the web, the form looks like this:

Answer 1

You create a Stream and pass it into your HttpWebRequest.

// Create a request using a URL that can receive a post. 
WebRequest request = 
    WebRequest.Create("http://www.contoso.com/PostAccepter.aspx ");
// Set the Method property of the request to POST.
request.Method = "POST";

// Create POST data and convert it to a byte array.
string postData = "p=Some text here from the textarea";

byte[] byteArray = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes (postData);
// Set the ContentType property of the WebRequest.
request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
// Set the ContentLength property of the WebRequest.
request.ContentLength = byteArray.Length;
// Get the request stream.
Stream dataStream = request.GetRequestStream ();
// Write the data to the request stream.
dataStream.Write (byteArray, 0, byteArray.Length);
// Close the Stream object.
dataStream.Close ();
// Get the response.
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse ();
// Display the status.
Console.WriteLine (((HttpWebResponse)response).StatusDescription);
// Get the stream containing content returned by the server.
dataStream = response.GetResponseStream ();
// Open the stream using a StreamReader for easy access.
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader (dataStream);
// Read the content.
string responseFromServer = reader.ReadToEnd ();
// Display the content.
Console.WriteLine (responseFromServer);
// Clean up the streams.
reader.Close ();
dataStream.Close ();
response.Close ();

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/debx8sh9.aspx