I found this snippet of code here that allows you to log into a website and get the response from the logged in page. However, I'm having trouble understanding all the part of the code. I've tried my best to fill in whatever I understand so far. Hope you guys can fill in the blanks for me. Thanks
string nick = "mrbean"; string password = "12345"; //this is the query data that is getting posted by the website. //the query parameters 'nick' and 'password' must match the //name of the form you're trying to log into. you can find the input names //by using firebug and inspecting the text field string postData = "nick=" + nick + "&password=" + password; // this puts the postData in a byte Array with a specific encoding //Why must the data be in a byte array? byte[] data = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(postData); // this basically creates the login page of the site you want to log into WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create("http://www.mrbeanandme.com/login/"); // im guessing these parameters need to be set but i dont why? request.Method = "POST"; request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"; request.ContentLength = data.Length; // this opens a stream for writing the post variables. // im not sure what a stream class does. need to do some reading into this. Stream stream = request.GetRequestStream(); // you write the postData to the website and then close the connection? stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length); stream.Close(); // this receives the response after the log in WebResponse response = request.GetResponse(); stream = response.GetResponseStream(); // i guess you need a stream reader to read a stream? StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(stream); // this outputs the code to console and terminates the program Console.WriteLine(sr.ReadToEnd()); Console.ReadLine(); 
