How to set the content of an HttpWebRequest in C#?

Question

An HttpWebRequest has the properties ContentLength and ContentType, but how do you actually set the content of the request?

Answer 1

.NET 4.5 (or .NET 4.0 by adding the Microsoft.Net.Http package from NuGet) provides a lot of additional flexibility in setting the request content. Here is an example:

private System.IO.Stream Upload(string actionUrl, string paramString, Stream paramFileStream, byte [] paramFileBytes)
{
    HttpContent stringContent = new StringContent(paramString);
    HttpContent fileStreamContent = new StreamContent(paramFileStream);
    HttpContent bytesContent = new ByteArrayContent(paramFileBytes);
    using (var client = new HttpClient())
    using (var formData = new MultipartFormDataContent())
    {
        formData.Add(stringContent, "param1", "param1");
        formData.Add(fileStreamContent, "file1", "file1");
        formData.Add(bytesContent, "file2", "file2");
        var response = client.PostAsync(actionUrl, formData).Result;
        if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            return null;
        }
        return response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync().Result;
    }
}