I can't possibly be the only one learning to interact with a REST API from .Net code (maybe I am... who knows). It would be HUGELY useful (to me anyway) to have an area where there are sets of SIMPLE code examples that do one job cleanly.
For example, I went around and around in circles today chasing my tail trying to figure out why no matter what format I sent the JSON body up to the server in, it always returned a (415) Unsupported Media Type error.
It would have saved literally HOURS to have simply had a little bit of code that demonstrated how from a .Net application I could obtain the access token. With EXPLICIT sample data and not just { YOUR INPUT HERE }.
So for the first item I'll post my code for that operation, it's a bit lengthy because I utilize object serialization but it is easy to follow and gets the job done.
First, this code utilizes the newtonsoft.json and the System.Net (for WebClient) library and is written in
VB.net (using .Net framework 4.5.2). And I happen to be talking to SmarterMail 100.0.7125.
Step 1: Define the classes you will be utilizing
Class 1 - Username and Password
Public Class clsUsernamePassword
Public Property username As String
Public Property password As String
Public Sub New(strU As String, strP As String)
username = strU
password = strP
End Sub
End ClassClass 2 - return object for auth/authenticate-user
Public Class clsAuthenticateUser
Public Property EmailAddress As String
Public Property changePasswordNeeded As Boolean
Public Property displayWelcomeWizard As Boolean
Public Property isAdmin As Boolean
Public Property isDomainAdmin As Boolean
Public Property isLicensed As Boolean
Public Property autoLoginToken As String
Public Property autoLoginUrl As String
Public Property isImpersonating As Boolean
Public Property canViewPasswords As Boolean
Public Property accessToken As String
Public Property refreshToken As String
Public Property accessTokenExpiration As Date
Public Property username As String
Public Property success As Boolean
Public Property resultCode As Integer
Public Property message As String
Public Property debugInfo As String
End ClassStep 2 - Setup a management class for managing communication with SmarterMail
Public Class SmarterMailAPIClient
Public Function DoAuthorizeAndGetAccessToken(strU As String, strP As String,
strSvr As String, strAPI As String) As clsAuthenticateUser
Dim myURL As String = strSvr + strAPI + "/auth/authenticate-user"
Dim myClient As WebClient = New WebClient
myClient.Headers(HttpRequestHeader.ContentType) = "application/json"
Dim myO As New clsUsernamePassword(strU, strP)
Dim myJson As String = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(myO)
Dim jsonResponse As String = myClient.UploadString(myURL, myJson)
Dim clsAuthenticateUserObject As clsAuthenticateUser = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(Of clsAuthenticateUser)(jsonResponse)
Return clsAuthenticateUserObject
End Function
End ClassStep 3 - From the main program then utilize the Client API object to authenticate user and acquire the AccessToken and Expiration (this is a form with user/password/server/API path fields on it and a button
to trigger the operation to be called) on success it simply shows the Access Token and when it expires,
on failure it displays an error message. Like I said... KEEP THE EXAMPLES SIMPLE, but complete. :)
Private Sub bAuth_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles bAuth.Click
Dim o As New SmarterMailAPIClient
Dim res As clsAuthenticateUser = o.DoAuthorizeAndGetAccessToken(tUser.Text, tPass.Text, tSvr.Text, tAPI.Text)
If Not IsNothing(res) Then
With res
lblAccessToken.Text = .accessToken
lblExpires.Text = .accessTokenExpiration.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss")
End With
Else
lblError.Text = "Could not communicate with SmarterMail Server"
End If
o = Nothing
End Sub
I sure hope that saves someone the world of headaches I had.
The key to curing the (415) error was one line of code:
myClient.Headers(HttpRequestHeader.ContentType) = "application/json"
Without that the server apparently has no clue how to format what is being sent to it.
Following the methodology above, you should be able to build out any of the operations in the API with .Net's WebClient and the newtonsoft.json library.
Rod