Is there a content Header Type for adding HttpResponseHeader?

Question

The only method I see in HttpResponseHeaders is Add which takes string type for header type. I just wonder did .NET provided a list of HttpResponseHeader type contants in string?

So I can do:

HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateResponse.........;
response.Headers.Add(xxxxx.ContentRange, "something");

I can see there is a list of Enum in HttpResponseHeader, but it doesn't provide string value conrespondingly...

i.e HttpResponseHeader.ContentRange, but the correct header string should be Content-Range

Correct me if I am wrong...

Answer 1

There are three strongly-typed HTTP header classes in the System.Net.Http.Headers namespace:

• HttpContentHeaders
• HttpRequestHeaders
• HttpResponseHeaders

HttpContentHeaders (which is accessible via the Headers property of any of the System.Net.Http.HttpContent types) has pre-defined properties for Content-Type, Content-Length, Content-Encoding etc... (which seem to be the headers you were after).

You can set them like this:

var content = new StringContent("foo");
content.Headers.Expires = DateTime.Now.AddHours(4);
content.Headers.ContentType.MediaType = "text/plain";

...and the header names will be set correctly.

Answer 2

Maybe you can try something like this.

var whc = new System.Net.WebHeaderCollection();
whc.Add(System.Net.HttpResponseHeader.ContentRange, "myvalue");
Response.Headers.Add(whc);

In a webapi context, the last line could be :

HttpContext.Current.Response.Headers.Add(whc);

anyway, @ServiceGuy's answer is the way to go in a webapi/mvc context

Hope this will help

Answer 3

You can get and set common headers by property on WebRequest and WebResponse, like HttpWebRequest.ContentType.

Answer 4

C# has a built-in conversion from Enum to string. Consider these assignments:

int val = 5;
HttpResponseHeader header = HttpResponseHeader.Allow 

Now, val.ToString() will return the string "5", but header.ToString() will return "Allow". So I humbly suggest using

response.Headers.Add(HttpResponseHeader.ContentRange.ToString(), "something");

Answer 5

Use the ContentType Property: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httpwebrequest.contenttype.aspx.

I was able to do this in my WCF service implementation by doing the following:

// Get the outgoing response portion of the current context
var response = WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse;

// Add ContentType header that specifies we are using JSON
response.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json").ToString();