How do I convert this filestream from an API to a PDF or XML file?

Question

I am trying to use an API to download documents which will be in either PDF or Word document formats. The service gives directions only up to how to construct the request URL, which I have done.

The API offers an xml or json method in the url, I am using xml.

I have tried to get the string and parsing it to an XDocument:

 XDocument response; using (var webClient = new System.Net.WebClient()) { response = XDocument.Parse(webClient.DownloadString(url)); } Console.WriteLine(response);

I also tried downloading as a file:

 using (var webClient = new System.Net.WebClient()) { webClient.DownloadFile(url, filepath)); }

Both produce the same result:

%PDF-1.5 %µµµµ 1 0 obj <</Type/Catalog/Pages 2 0 R/Lang(en-US) >> endobj 2 0 obj <</Type/Pages/Count 2/Kids[ 3 0 R 27 0 R] >> endobj 3 0 obj <</Type/Page/Parent 2 0 R/Resources<</Font<</F1 5 0 R/F2 7 0 R/F3 9 0 R/F4 11 0 R/F5 13 0 R/F6 21 0 R>>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/Annots[ 18 0 R 19 0 R 20 0 R 26 0 R] /MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<</Type/Group/S/Transparency/CS/DeviceRGB>>/Tabs/S>> endobj 4 0 obj <</Filter/FlateDecode/Length 6592>> stream xœÝ=k“Û6’ß]åÿÀOYÍžÍo2ÙrÝ8‰sÙ‡Çn²Æ2=¦¡|ó°ãÔþøën€/‘ÐH r]¥"%ˆÝht7ú…KÎïÞ:Q™H•0#R©®xš©ä²¼{çå_ïÞùßíC~ùkRÓ“åi.›B¥Fï÷Œ‡ÏîÞùôK¸I<{y÷K2ø%ŒóTfR™'Ï.îÞÉRø,ÉRžkx•Ery>ñá_ß½óÛ"9ùwòìïwï|ÏÿÑ…J‹¼A„ñ4×r®<a,Íä®ºÈS×\¤ïáZÌ"ë6Ts•*UCd NUÃS„ªÊ¤<.UU‘š T•9)&U¥NMª –Ê¸Tðû Te9rRLªò•L

and a lot more like this goes on. It's very odd characters, I am not sure how to parse an XML or PDF document from this.

why would you convert it? That is a PDF. Write it to disk (name it foo.pdf) and double click on the file to open it in your pdf reader — rene
– rene, Commented Jul 3, 2018 at 20:27
didn't realize I was getting a pdf file when the API gave me only xml and json options. thanks @rene — hsbsid
– hsbsid, Commented Jul 4, 2018 at 18:08

Hitesh Anshani · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-03 20:58:45Z

0

You could use HttpClient for Async requests Httpclient is a better option instead of webclient

 public static async Task get() { HttpClient _httpClient = new HttpClient()) string url = "https://someurl.com"; var result = await _httpClient.GetAsync($"{url}"); // contents to a log file string resultContent = await result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync(); File.WriteAllText("D://dT.pdf", resultContent); // ... write to log }

edited Jul 3, 2018 at 20:58

answered Jul 3, 2018 at 20:55

Hitesh Anshani

1,5491 gold badge11 silver badges20 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

5 Comments

mason Over a year ago

You're also using HttpClient wrong. Even though it implements IDisposable, it shouldn't be in a using statement. See You're Using HttpClient Wrong And It's Destabilizing Your Software. A better alternative would be to use a library that handles these complications for you, such as Flurl.Http or RestSharp.

Hitesh Anshani Over a year ago

httpclient is in under using now

Hitesh Anshani Over a year ago

Please update answer if you want @mason i will from that aswell and this method is working properly in my case

mason Over a year ago

That's exactly my point - you have it in a using statement. And that's dangerous. Did you even read the link I provided?

Hitesh Anshani Over a year ago

@mason now its fine?

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How do I convert this filestream from an API to a PDF or XML file?

1 Answer 1

5 Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

5 Comments

Linked

Related