How to call an external REST API in Silverlight

Question

Assuming I don't control the server and can't put a crossdomain.xml or clientaccesspolicy.xml file there, how can I make http calls inside a Silverlight app to an external REST API, without having to use javascript to do it and then pass the data to the Silverlight app?

Answer 1

I ended up implementing an ASP.NET proxy similar to what's described here

and then adding the following code to the Silverlight App:

    public class Handler : IWebRequestCreate
    {
        public WebRequest Create(Uri uri)
        {
            return WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp.Create(new Uri("http://localhost:3234/Proxy.ashx?" + Uri.EscapeUriString(uri.OriginalString)));
        }
    }

    public MainPage()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        HttpWebRequest.RegisterPrefix("http://", new Handler());
        HttpWebRequest.RegisterPrefix("https://", new Handler());

        (...rest of code...)
    }

One caveat is that on the rest of the code one must be carefull to always use HttpWebRequest.Create and never HttpWebRequest.CreateHttp