How to consume Asp.Net WebAPI endpoints from other applications using C#?

HttpClient class provides a base class for sending/receiving the HTTP requests/responses from a URL. It is a supported async feature of .NET framework. HttpClient is able to process multiple concurrent requests. It is a layer over HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse. All methods with HttpClient are asynchronous. HttpClient is available in System.Net.Http namespace.

Let us create an WebAPI application having a StudentController and respective action methods.

Student Model

namespace DemoWebApplication.Models{
   public class Student{
      public int Id { get; set; }
      public string Name { get; set; }
   }
}

Student Controller

using DemoWebApplication.Models;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web.Http;
namespace DemoWebApplication.Controllers{
   public class StudentController : ApiController{
      List<Student> students = new List<Student>{
         new Student{
            Id = 1,
            Name = "Mark"
         },
         new Student{
            Id = 2,
            Name = "John"
         }
      };
      public IEnumerable<Student> Get(){
         return students;
      }
      public Student Get(int id){
         var studentForId = students.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Id == id);
         return studentForId;
      }
   }
}

Now, let us create a console application where we want consume the above created WebApi endpoints to get the student details.

Example

using System;
using System.Net.Http;
namespace DemoApplication{
   public class Program{
      static void Main(string[] args){
         using (var httpClient = new HttpClient()){
            Console.WriteLine("Calling WebApi for get all students");
            var students = GetResponse("student");
            Console.WriteLine($"All Students: {students}");
            Console.WriteLine("Calling WebApi for student id 2");
            var studentForId = GetResponse("student/2");
            Console.WriteLine($"Student for Id 2: {students}");
            Console.ReadLine();
         }
      }
      private static string GetResponse(string url){
         using (var httpClient = new HttpClient()){
            httpClient.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://localhost:58174/api/");
            var responseTask = httpClient.GetAsync(url);
            var result = responseTask.Result;
            var readTask = result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
            return readTask.Result;
         }
      }
   }
}

Output

Calling WebApi for get all students
All Students: [{"Id":1,"Name":"Mark"},{"Id":2,"Name":"John"}]
Calling WebApi for student id 2
Student for Id 2: {"Id":2,"Name":"John"}

In the above example we could see that the endpoints of the WebApi is called from a separate console application.