HttpClient Multipart Form Post in C#

Question

I'm trying to do a multipart form post using the HttpClient in C# and am finding the following code does not work.

Important:

var jsonToSend = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(json, Formatting.None, new IsoDateTimeConverter());
var multipart = new MultipartFormDataContent();
var body = new StringContent(jsonToSend, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");

multipart.Add(body);
multipart.Add(new ByteArrayContent(File.ReadAllBytes("test.txt")), "test", "test.txt");

var httpClient = new HttpClient();
var response = httpClient.PostAsync(new Uri("http://localhost:55530"), multipart).Result;

Full Program :

namespace CourierMvc.Worker
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            while (true)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Hit any key to make request.");
                Console.ReadKey();

                try
                {
                    var request = new RestRequest(Method.POST)
                    {
                        Resource = "http://localhost:55530"
                    };

                    var json = new CourierMessage
                    {
                        Id = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(),
                        Key = "awesome",
                        From = "khalid@home.com",
                        To = new[] { "me@test.com", "you@test.com" },
                        Subject = "test",
                        Body = "body",
                        Processed = DateTimeOffset.UtcNow,
                        Received = DateTime.Now,
                        Created = DateTime.Now,
                        Sent = DateTime.Now,
                        Links = new[] { new Anchor { Link = "http://google.com" }, new Anchor { Link = "http://yahoo.com" } }
                    };

                    var jsonToSend = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(json, Formatting.None, new IsoDateTimeConverter());
                    var multipart = new MultipartFormDataContent();
                    var body = new StringContent(jsonToSend, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");

                    multipart.Add(body);
                    multipart.Add(new ByteArrayContent(File.ReadAllBytes("test.txt")), "test", "test.txt");

                    var httpClient = new HttpClient();
                    var response = httpClient.PostAsync(new Uri("http://localhost:55530"), multipart).Result;

                }
                catch (Exception e)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(e);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

I really have no idea why it doesn't work. I get the file to post to the endpoint, but the body (json) never gets there. Am I doing something wrong?

Server Side Code Request:

namespace CourierMvc.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        //
        // GET: /Home/

        public ActionResult Index()
        {
            return Content("Home#Index");
        }


        [ValidateInput(false)]
        public ActionResult Create(CourierMessage input)
        {
            var files = Request.Files;

            return Content("OK");
        }

    }
}

Route Config:

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
{
    routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

    routes.MapRoute(
        name: "Default",
        url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
        defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Create", id = UrlParameter.Optional }
    );

}

Answer 1

So the problem I'm seeing is that the MultipartFormDataContent request message will always set the content type of the request to "multipart/form-data". Endcoding json and placing that into the request only "looks" like to the model binder as a string.

Your options are:

• have your mvc action method receive a string and deserialize into your object
• post each property of your model as a form part
• create a custom model binder that will handle your request.
• Breakup the operation into two posts, first sends the json metadata, the other sends the file. The response from the server should send some id or key to correlate the two requests.

Reading through the RFC document and the MSDN documentation you may be able to do this, if you replace MultipartFormDataContent with MultipartContent. But I have not tested this yet.