C# HTTP Server - Respond post request without processing post data

Question

I am currently working on a local http server written in C#. At this point I am not yet processing post data, but only distinguish between get and post request. In both cases, of course, a 200 should be answered. While testing the server, I noticed that if I send an empty post request, it is answered by the server with a 200 and an html page just like a get request without any problems. However, if there are images attached to the post request, as in my example, the connection to the server fails immediately.

I handle a client connection as follows. I know it's not ideal to store the received bytes in a string, but for testing purposes I haven't seen any problems with it.

private void HandleClient(TcpClient client)
{
    Byte[] bytes;
    String requestData = "";
    NetworkStream ns = client.GetStream();
    if (client.ReceiveBufferSize > 0)
    {
        bytes = new byte[client.ReceiveBufferSize];
        ns.Read(bytes, 0, client.ReceiveBufferSize);
        requestData = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytes);
    }

    // Get Request out of message
    Request request = Request.GetRequest(requestData);
    // Create Response
    Response response = Response.From(request);
    response.Post(client.GetStream());           
}

And here is the method I use to determine what type of request it is.

public static Request GetRequest(String request)
{
    //return if request is null
    if(String.IsNullOrEmpty(request))
    {
        return null;
    }
    //Split Request to get tokens - split by spaces
    String[] tokens = request.Split(' ');
    String type = tokens[0];
    String url = tokens[1];
    String host = tokens[4];

    return new Request(type, url, host);
}

Surely it must be possible to read only the headers from a get as well as post request and then still give a 200 response. Is there a rule of behavior for an http server on how it should handle post-request data?

Answer 1

The answer to my question was quite simple in the end. The input stream of a request must be read completely before the server can respond to the request. In my case it was so, that I only read the header of the request to know if it is a Post or Get request, therefore the server could not respond to the request in case of an attached image, because the input stream was not read completely.