How can i download a website content to a string?

Question

I tried this and i want that the source content of the website will be download to a string:

public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        WebClient client         


        

Answer 1

If you are using .Net 4.5,

public async void Downloader()
{
    using (WebClient wc = new WebClient())
    {
        string page = await wc.DownloadStringTaskAsync("http://chatroll.com/rotternet");
    }
}

For 3.5 or 4.0

public void Downloader()
{
    using (WebClient wc = new WebClient())
    {
        wc.DownloadStringCompleted += (s, e) =>
        {
            string page = e.Result;
        };
        wc.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://chatroll.com/rotternet"));
    }
}

Answer 2

Using WebRequest:

WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(url);
request.Method = "GET";
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
Stream stream = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream);
string content = reader.ReadToEnd();
reader.Close();
response.Close();

You can easily call the code from within another thread, or use background worer - that will make your UI responsive while retrieving data.

Answer 3

No need for async, really:

var result = new System.Net.WebClient().DownloadString(url)

If you don't want to block your UI, you can put the above in a BackgroundWorker. The reason I suggest this rather than the Async methods is because it is dramatically simpler to use, and because I suspect you are just going to stick this string into the UI somewhere anyway (where BackgroundWorker will make your life easier).