Why is context.Request.InputStream empty

Question

I saw this question often asked, however I couldn't find solution. Why is the request streal always null. This is the code:

static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        HttpListener listener = new HttpListener();
        listener.Prefixes.Add("http://localhost:1330/");
        listener.Start();
        while (true)
        {
            HttpListenerContext context = listener.GetContext();
            HttpListenerRequest request = context.Request;
            HttpListenerResponse response = context.Response;
            request.InputStream.Position = 0;
            Console.WriteLine(request.InputStream.Length);
        }
    }

The length is 0 and I tried reading it with stream reader and in a byte array:

request.InputStream.Position = 0;
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(request.InputStream);
string test = reader.ReadToEnd();
Console.WriteLine(test);

Or

request.InputStream.Position = 0;
byte[] buffer = new byte[10000];
request.InputStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
Console.WriteLine(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer));

Both are empty - they just give 7 or 8 ("\n") newlines, I say that because I noticed the console cursor jumps 7 lines below, when a clients connects, without writing any non-blank string.

Answer 1

I think you are using Get method, instead test your web server with Post content. In get method, your input stream will be always empty as there is no data in the body. Try to perform a post request and see whether you are getting the input stream.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Hi there,

request.InputStream is always Not null, what you could test is request.InputStream.CanRead && request.InputStream.CanSeek so you can safely re-position the cursor in the stream and later can read it.

Direct reading from the Request.InputStream is dangerous because when re-reading will get null even if the data exists. This is verified in practice.

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