Calling WEB API with basic authentication in C#

Question

I have a working WEB API that I wrote, and I added basic authentication to the API (username is "testing", password is "123456"). However, when trying to call that API from my web form, I keep getting the "(401) Unauthorized" message. What should I change in the web code to call the API successfully?

 string url = String.Format("http://example.com"); //here I have the correct url for my API
 HttpWebRequest requestObj = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
 requestObj.Method = "Get";
 requestObj.PreAuthenticate = true;
 requestObj.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("testing", "123456");
 HttpWebResponse responseObj = null;
 responseObj = (HttpWebResponse)requestObj.GetResponse();
 string strresult = null;
 using (Stream stream = responseObj.GetResponseStream())
 {
     StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(stream);
     strresult = sr.ReadToEnd();
     sr.Close();
 }

This is what my API searches for in terms of authentication:

actionContext.Request.Headers.Authorization.Parameter

Should I be adding a header instead of NetworkCredential or is it the same thing?

Answer 1

This should help:

HttpMessageHandler handler = new HttpClientHandler();
    
var httpClient = new HttpClient(handler)
{
     BaseAddress = new Uri(url),
     Timeout = new TimeSpan(0, 2, 0)
};
    
httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("ContentType", "application/json");
    
//This is the key section you were missing    
var plainTextBytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("testing:123456");
string val = System.Convert.ToBase64String(plainTextBytes);
httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", "Basic " + val);
    
HttpResponseMessage response = httpClient.GetAsync(url).Result;
string content = string.Empty;
    
using (StreamReader stream = new StreamReader(response.Content.ReadAsStreamAsync().Result, System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(_encoding)))
{
     content = stream.ReadToEnd();
}