Getting the location from a WebClient on a HTTP 302 Redirect?

Question

I have a URL that returns a HTTP 302 redirect, and I would like to get the URL it redirects to.

The problem is that System.Net.WebClient seems to actually follow it,

Answer 1

Also, for someone who just needs the new location, HttpResponseMessage has a RequestMessage property. Sometimes it can be useful, because WebClient doesn't support changing the AllowAutoRedirect property once it's been set.

Answer 2

The HttpWebRequest has a property AllowAutoRedirect which you can set to false (it is always true for WebClient), and then get the Location HTTP header.

Answer 3

On HttpWebRequest you can set AllowAutoRedirect to false to handle the redirect yourself.

Answer 4

It's pretty easy to do

Let's assume you've created an HttpWebRequest called myRequest

// don't allow redirects, they are allowed by default so we're going to override
myRequest.AllowAutoRedirect = false;

// send the request
HttpWebResponse response = myRequest.GetResponse();

// check the header for a Location value
if( response.Headers["Location"] == null )
{
  // null means no redirect
}
else
{
  // anything non null means we got a redirect
}

Excuse any compile errors I don't have VS right in front of me, but I've used this in the past to check for redirects.