Nancy (C#): How do I get my post data?

Question

I'm using Corona SDK to post data to my C# server:

headers["Content-Type"] = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
headers["Accept-Language"] = "en-US"

local body = "color=red&size=small"

local params = {}
params.headers = headers
params.body = body

network.request( host .. "/UpdateHand", "POST", nwListener, params )

I receive a message on the server:

  Post["/UpdateHand"] = x =>
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Received ...");
            return "Ok";
        };

But when I check the data (when I put a breakpoint on it) I don't see where my data is locaded (i.e. the params.body or params.headers). How can I extract this information?

I should POST it correctly according to the documentation on Corona: http://docs.coronalabs.com/daily/api/library/network/request.html

Answer 1

The post data is in

this.Request.Body

If you have suitable type you can deserialize your data to it using model binding:

var x = this.Bind<YourType>();

Answer 2

There is a Nancy extension for this. You will need to include the namespace for it.

using Nancy.Extensions;
var text =  Context.Request.Body.AsString();

I like how concise this is, part of Nancy's super-duper easy path.

But a word of caution! This method leaves the stream at the end, so subsequent calls will return empty string. To fix this, always reset the stream immediately afterwards, like so:

Request.Body.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

Nancy 2.0 is supposed to correct this so that the stream position is reset by default.

https://github.com/NancyFx/Nancy/pull/2158

Answer 3

This actually works great:

var body = this.Request.Body; 
int length = (int) body.Length; // this is a dynamic variable
byte[] data = new byte[length]; 
body.Read(data, 0, length);             
Console.WriteLine(System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(data));

Answer 4

For Nancy 2.0.0, Request.Body is a Stream rather than a RequestStream, so doesn't have an AsString method. However, this seems to work:

using (var reqStream = RequestStream.FromStream(Request.Body))
{
    var body = reqStream.AsString();
    // ... do stuff with body
}

Answer 5

Ideally getting your post data could be accomplished with a simple Bind() call. However, I've seen inconsistent results when using a Bind in a post call such that I've resorted to using the scheme outlined above.

I've seen various discussions about Nancy Bind() working and not working... I've seen both with Post but cannot explain the inconsistency. Where I saw it function properly was where I could guarantee the body of the request was managed as follows:

        var data = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes (postData);

        request.Method = "POST";
        request.ContentType = "application/json";
        request.ContentLength = data.Length;

        using (var stream = request.GetRequestStream ()) {
            stream.Write (data, 0, data.Length);
        }

However, when sending data that should have been similarly handled (though I couldn't confirm) through WSO2 infrastructure (data serialized as a JSON event dictionary sent to a service proxy), Bind failed while the method above succeeded.