C# how to post data through HTTP to PHP and run it

Question

So I hava an app which creates a JSON file with some data from the user. This data should be decoded and stored to the database through a PHP script located on my server. I want to post the $_POST variable filename to the php script to use this to retrieve the JSON file. Here is my current PHP script:

<?php
$host='myip';
$user='username';
$pass='userpass';
$db='database';

$link= mysqli_connect($host, $user, $pass, $db) or die(msqli_error($link));

$filename = $_POST['filename'] . '.json';

$json = file_get_contents($filename);
$obj = json_decode($json,true);

foreach ($obj as $data) 
{
$query_opslaan = "INSERT INTO skMain (BedrijfsName, ContPers, TelNum, email, Land, Plaats, PostCode) VALUES ('". $data['bedrijfsNaam'] ."' , '". $data['ContPers'] ."', '". $data['TelNum'] ."', '". $data['email'] ."', '". $data['Land'] ."', '". $data['Plaats'] ."', '". $data['PostCode'] ."')";
}
?>

And this is my JSON file

{
"bedrijfsNaam":"JohnDoeMedia",
"ContPers":"John Doe",
"TelNum":"1234567890",
"email":"test@test.nl",
"Land":"Nederland",
"Plaats":"somewhere",
"PostCode":"1234 AB"
}

I currently only have the upload script in C# but I don't know how to use it to run this PHP script and store data to the PHP variable $_POST['filename'] Here is the store script:

        WebRequest hwr = WebRequest.Create(serverPath);
        hwr.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.UploadFile;
        hwr.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(ftpUser, ftpPass);

        if (reqCat == "bvg")
        {
            json = "{\"bedrijfsNaam\":\"" + bedrijfsNaam + "\"," +
                            "\"ContPers\":\"" + ContPers + "\"," +
                            "\"TelNum\":\"" + TelNum + "\"," +
                            "\"email\":\"" + email + "\"," +
                            "\"Land\":\"" + Land + "\"," +
                            "\"Plaats\":\"" + Plaats + "\"," +
                            "\"PostCode\":\"" + PostCode + "\"}";
            using (var sw = new StreamWriter(hwr.GetRequestStream()))
            {
                sw.Write(json);
                sw.Flush();
                sw.Close();
            }
        }

Can someone please teach me the method to make this work?

Answer 1

I'm going to take a stab at this because I think you are possibly confused. You mention you are trying to POST the data but your code shows you are trying to FTP directly to the server.

I've included code I've used to FTP to a server. If you actually want to post via a web service call this won't do that.

        FtpWebRequest lRequest = (FtpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(serverPath);          
        lRequest.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.UploadFile;
        lRequest.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(ftpUser, ftpPass);
        StreamReader lReader = new StreamReader(json);

        //convert steam to utf8
        byte[] lContents = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(lReader.ReadToEnd());
        lReader.Close();

        //Get length of data to post
        lRequest.ContentLength = lContents.Length;

        //Get your request stream
        Stream lRequestStream = lRequest.GetRequestStream();

        //Write to the stream
        lRequestStream.Write(lContents, 0, lContents.Length);

        //Close the stream
        lRequestStream.Close();

        //Get the response from the server
        FtpWebResponse lResponse = (FtpWebResponse)lRequest.GetResponse();

        //What is the actual status.
        MessageBox.Show(String.Format("Upload File Complete, status {0}", lResponse.StatusDescription));

Note you'll have to do the using and whatnot like you are but I have used that code to ftp to a server. I modified it slightly to try and use your variable names though.

Since the request was to use HTTP to send just a filename I've added that to my answer. In the code below the big part is the uri. I am assuming that you can just create your URI to be the web service that runs the php. It would look something like... Where SERVERPATH is your server with the script.php and assuming the parameter your php script is looking for is called FileName. The code also includes handling responses from the server but you might not need to do that depending on what you want the server to do.

Also note that the accept and content type is probably not relevant unless you are expecting a return from the server. The two lines you are mostly concerned with are the WebRequest.Create(xUri) and the lRequest.GetResponse() to actually execute your web request.

http://SERVERPATH/PHP_SCRIPT?FileName=FILENAME

private void CallWebApi(String xUri)
    {
        String lResults;
        using(WebClient lClient = new WebClient()) {
            try {
                HttpWebRequest lRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(xUri);
                lRequest.Accept = "application/json";
                lRequest.ContentType = "application/json";
                HttpWebResponse lResponse = (HttpWebResponse)lRequest.GetResponse();
                using(StreamReader lJsonReader = new StreamReader(lResponse.GetResponseStream())) {
                    lResults = lJsonReader.ReadToEnd();
                }

                lRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(xUri);
                lRequest.Accept = "application/xml";
                lRequest.ContentType = "application/xml";
                lResponse = (HttpWebResponse)lRequest.GetResponse();
                using(StreamReader lXMLReader = new StreamReader(lResponse.GetResponseStream())) {
                    lResults = lXMLReader.ReadToEnd();
                }

            }
            catch(Exception lException) {
                MessageBox.Show(lException.Message);
            }
        }
    }