HttpWebRequest is a concrete class for .NET Framework applications that provides an HTTP-specific implementation of the abstract WebRequest class. Related tag: [webrequest].
The HttpWebRequest class provides support for the properties and methods defined in WebRequest and for additional properties and methods that enable the user to interact directly with servers using HTTP.
Do not use the HttpWebRequest constructor. Use the WebRequest.Create method to initialize new HttpWebRequest objects. If the scheme for the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is http:// or https://, Create returns an HttpWebRequest object.
The GetResponse method makes a synchronous request to the resource specified in the RequestUri property and returns an HttpWebResponse that contains the response. You can make an asynchronous request to the resource using the BeginGetResponse and EndGetResponse methods.
When you want to send data to the resource, the GetRequestStream method returns a Stream object to use to send data. The BeginGetRequestStream and EndGetRequestStream methods provide asynchronous access to the send data stream.
For client authentication with HttpWebRequest, the client certificate must be installed in the My certificate store of the current user.
The HttpWebRequest class throws a WebException when errors occur while accessing a resource. The WebException.Status property contains a WebExceptionStatus value that indicates the source of the error. When WebException.Status is WebExceptionStatus.ProtocolError, the Response property contains the HttpWebResponse received from the resource.
HttpWebRequest exposes common HTTP header values sent to the Internet resource as properties, set by methods, or set by the system; the following table contains a complete list. You can set other headers in the Headers property as name/value pairs. Note that servers and caches may change or add headers during the request.
You can find the documentation for the class on MSDN.
