Programmatic construction of httprequest?

[Bill Cohagan]

I'm constructing an ASP page that I'd like to test by writing a program that
simulates "many" users hitting the submit button on a form. I assume it's
possible to manually construct an httprequest object, but the docs are more
oriented towards using one that already exists. Am I on the right track or
is there an easier way?

In my case the Form to be submitted has a couple of hundred fields and what
I want to do is access a database with "answers" to use for filling in these
fields. I can then validate the results by comparing the source database
against what my ASP app creates.

Thanks for any suggestions/pointers...

Bill

[Brad Quinn]

The class that you want to look at is WebClient, specifically the
UploadValues method.

There may be automated tools that will simplify what you're trying to do.

"Bill Cohagan" wrote:

I'm constructing an ASP page that I'd like to test by writing a program that
simulates "many" users hitting the submit button on a form. I assume it's
possible to manually construct an httprequest object, but the docs are more
oriented towards using one that already exists. Am I on the right track or
is there an easier way?

In my case the Form to be submitted has a couple of hundred fields and what
I want to do is access a database with "answers" to use for filling in these
fields. I can then validate the results by comparing the source database
against what my ASP app creates.

Thanks for any suggestions/pointers...

Bill

[Joerg Jooss]

Bill Cohagan wrote:

I'm constructing an ASP page that I'd like to test by writing a
program that simulates "many" users hitting the submit button on a
form. I assume it's possible to manually construct an httprequest
object, but the docs are more oriented towards using one that already
exists. Am I on the right track or is there an easier way?

In my case the Form to be submitted has a couple of hundred fields
and what I want to do is access a database with "answers" to use for
filling in these fields. I can then validate the results by comparing
the source database against what my ASP app creates.

Thanks for any suggestions/pointers...

System.Web.Http Request is a server-side class. To create your own HTTP
requests, you'll want to use System.Net.Http WebRequest. The system you're
building reminds me of FIT --
see http://fit.c2.com/wiki.cgi?WhatsWhat.

Cheers,

--
Joerg Jooss
jo*********@gmx .net

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hi Bill,

As for using the HttpWebRequest, here ar e some tech articles :

#Test Automation for ASP.NET Web Apps with SSL
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/is...n/default.aspx

#POSTing Data with ASP.NET
http://authors.aspalliance.com/steve...netscrape2.asp

Hope also helps.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
(This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
rights.)

Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx

[Bill Cohagan]

Thanks to all for the quick and useful responses!

Bill

"Bill Cohagan" <bi**@teraXNOSP AMXquest.com> wrote in message
news:Ou******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl...

I'm constructing an ASP page that I'd like to test by writing a program that simulates "many" users hitting the submit button on a form. I assume it's
possible to manually construct an httprequest object, but the docs are more oriented towards using one that already exists. Am I on the right track or
is there an easier way?

In my case the Form to be submitted has a couple of hundred fields and what I want to do is access a database with "answers" to use for filling in these fields. I can then validate the results by comparing the source database
against what my ASP app creates.

Thanks for any suggestions/pointers...

Bill

[Bill Cohagan]

Steven
I've constructed a WebRequest class in c# based on these articles, but am
experiencing an error (500) Internal Server Error. Following I'm including
the constructor and the Post method code:
=============== =====
public WebRequest(stri ng url)
{
req = (HttpWebRequest )System.Net.Web Request.Create( url);
req.Method = "POST";
req.ContentType = "applicatio n/x-www-form-urlencoded";
}

public string Post()
{
req.ContentLeng th = post.Length;
using(StreamWri ter myWriter = new StreamWriter(re q.GetRequestStr eam()))
{
myWriter.Write( post);
}
HttpWebResponse res = (HttpWebRespons e)req.GetRespon se();
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(re s.GetResponseSt ream()) )
{
return sr.ReadToEnd();
}
}
=============== =============== =============== =
The error is thrown on the call to req.GetResponse ().

The url I'm passing in the constructor is http://localhost/QW/spike1.aspx
which is the correct url for the page under test. I've tried several
different values in the post string, including string.Empty, and always get
the same error. The _status property of the request indicates a protocol
error, but beyond that I'm not sure how to proceed. Any suggestions as to
how I might debug this?

Thanks
Bill

"Steven Cheng[MSFT]" <v-******@online.m icrosoft.com> wrote in message
news:c%******** ********@cpmsft ngxa06.phx.gbl. ..

Hi Bill,

As for using the HttpWebRequest, here ar e some tech articles :

#Test Automation for ASP.NET Web Apps with SSL
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/is...n/default.aspx

#POSTing Data with ASP.NET
http://authors.aspalliance.com/steve...netscrape2.asp

Hope also helps.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security
(This posting is provided "AS IS", with no warranties, and confers no
rights.)

Get Preview at ASP.NET whidbey
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/whidbey/default.aspx

[Scott Allen]

Hi Bill:

In my experience, nine times out of ten this is caused by incorrect
POST data. You might need to UrlEncode the data, or might not have the
right content length, something along those lines.

One of the best ways to debug this is to use a tool like Fiddler.
http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/

What you do is record what your browser sends to the server if you do
the POST manually. Then record what your sofrware sends. Then compare
the two and see what is different.

I have an article here that may offer some insight too:

Screen Scraping, ViewState, and Authentication using ASP.Net
http://odetocode.com/Articles/162.aspx

Hope this helps,

--
Scott
http://www.OdeToCode.com

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:42:39 -0500, "Bill Cohagan"
<bi**@teraXNOSP AMXquest.com> wrote:

Steven
I've constructed a WebRequest class in c# based on these articles, but am
experiencing an error (500) Internal Server Error. Following I'm including
the constructor and the Post method code:
============== ======

[Bill Cohagan]

Scott-
Thanks for the response and suggestions. I downloaded and installed
fiddler and it works fine for a browser induced POST, but absolutely nothing
is captured when I try my program. I have included the suggested
GlobalProxySele ction.Select code as well.

Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks again,
Bill
"Scott Allen" <bitmask@[nospam].fred.net> wrote in message
news:4f******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

Hi Bill:

In my experience, nine times out of ten this is caused by incorrect
POST data. You might need to UrlEncode the data, or might not have the
right content length, something along those lines.

One of the best ways to debug this is to use a tool like Fiddler.
http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/

What you do is record what your browser sends to the server if you do
the POST manually. Then record what your sofrware sends. Then compare
the two and see what is different.

I have an article here that may offer some insight too:

Screen Scraping, ViewState, and Authentication using ASP.Net
http://odetocode.com/Articles/162.aspx

Hope this helps,

--
Scott
http://www.OdeToCode.com

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:42:39 -0500, "Bill Cohagan"
<bi**@teraXNOSP AMXquest.com> wrote:

Steven
I've constructed a WebRequest class in c# based on these articles, but amexperiencing an error (500) Internal Server Error. Following I'm includingthe constructor and the Post method code:
============== ======

[Scott Allen]

Hi Bill:

I'm sorry I don't have a good suggestion (I've seen it work,
really!!).

Perhaps restarting IIS after Fiddler has started? Seems hackish but I
can't think of anything at the moment....

--
Scott
http://www.OdeToCode.com

On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 20:20:32 -0500, "Bill Cohagan"
<bi**@teraXNOSP AMXquest.com> wrote:

Scott-
Thanks for the response and suggestions. I downloaded and installed
fiddler and it works fine for a browser induced POST, but absolutely nothing
is captured when I try my program. I have included the suggested
GlobalProxySel ection.Select code as well.

Any ideas/suggestions?

[Joerg Jooss]

Bill Cohagan wrote:

Steven
I've constructed a WebRequest class in c# based on these articles,
but am experiencing an error (500) Internal Server Error. Following
I'm including the constructor and the Post method code:
=============== =====
public WebRequest(stri ng url)
{
req = (HttpWebRequest )System.Net.Web Request.Create( url);
req.Method = "POST";
req.ContentType = "applicatio n/x-www-form-urlencoded";
}

public string Post()
{
req.ContentLeng th = post.Length;

First law of proper character string processing: String length in general
does not equal byte length.

Because...

using(StreamWri ter myWriter = new
StreamWriter(re q.GetRequestStr eam())) {
myWriter.Write( post);
.... posts UTF-8 encoded text. Every non-US-ASCII characters will take two or
more bytes to encode -- although admittedly at least some of your tests
should have worked.
The url I'm passing in the constructor is
http://localhost/QW/spike1.aspx which is the correct url for the page
under test. I've tried several different values in the post string,
including string.Empty, and always get the same error. The _status
property of the request indicates a protocol error, but beyond that
I'm not sure how to proceed. Any suggestions as to how I might debug
this?

As Steve suggested, try to get Fiddler to work. Or try this sample:

public void PostForm(string url, string formData, string encoding) {
byte[] content = Encoding.GetEnc oding(encoding) .GetByte(formDa ta);
string contentType = String.Format(
"applicatio n/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset={0}", encoding);

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest ) WebRequest.Crea te(url);
request.Method = "POST";
request.Content Type = contentType;
request.Content Length = content.Length;
using (Stream requestStream = request.GetRequ estStream()) {
requestStream.W rite(content, 0, content.Length) ;
}

HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebRespons e) request.GetResp onse();
using (Stream responseStream = response.GetRes ponseStream()) {
byte[] buffer = new byte[response.Conten tLength];
responseStream. Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
// Do something useful with buffer
}
}

Cheers,

--
Joerg Jooss
jo*********@gmx .net