How to deserialise a byte array containing HTTP POST parameters from a .NET WebClient

Question

I am sending an HTTP POST request to a remote URL using WebClient as follows:

byte[] responsebytes = client.UploadValues(
                        "https://www.jaja.com/yadayadayada", "POST", reqparm);
responsebody = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(responsebytes);

The URL gives a response in the form of HTTP POST parameters e.g:

"Status=Ok&BrowserUrl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.jaja.com%3a7106%2fxxx&Hash=8614C21DD93749339906DB35C51B06006B33DC8C192F40DFE2DB6549942C837C4452E1D1333DE9DB7814B278C8B9E3C34D1A76D2F937DEE57502336E0A071412"

The problem I'm facing here is how do I serialise this response to an object for this class:

public class PaynowResponseModel : PayNowBase
    {
        public string browserurl { get; set; }
        public string pollurl { get; set; }
        public string status { get; set; }
        public string hash { get; set; }
    }

I have tried the following method

public static object ByteArrayToObject(Byte[] buffer)
        {
            BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
            MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(buffer);
            object rval = formatter.Deserialize(stream);
            stream.Close();
            return rval;
        }

Which I'm calling this way:

var responseObj = (PaynowResponseModel) General.ByteArrayToObject(responsebytes);

But it's not working. I get an exception in the ByteArrayToObject method

System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationException was caught
HResult=-2146233076 Message=The input stream is not a valid binary format. The starting contents (in bytes) are: 73-74-61-74-75-73-3D-4F-6B-26-62-72-6F-77-73-65-72 ...
Source=mscorlib StackTrace: at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.SerializationHeaderRecord.Read(__BinaryParser input) at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.__BinaryParser.ReadSerializationHeaderRecord() at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.__BinaryParser.Run() at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectReader.Deserialize(HeaderHandler handler, __BinaryParser serParser, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage) at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream, HeaderHandler handler, Boolean fCheck, Boolean isCrossAppDomain, IMethodCallMessage methodCallMessage) at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Deserialize(Stream serializationStream)

Please assist with how I can solve this problem or an alternative way of achieving my goal there.

Thank you in advance :)

Nissim Nissim · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-31T18:30:03

You can't directly deserialize the byte array since the byte array is not a valid PayNowResponseModel serialized object.

Use HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(responsebytes)) in order to parse the retrieved string to a NameValueCollection, then create a converter to convert the data to PayNowResponseModel object. [You might need to add a reference to System.Web]

Take a look at the following sample:

        var resp = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(responsebytes);
        var converted = new PaynowResponseModel();
        converted.browserurl = resp["BrowserUrl"];
        converted.status = resp["Status"];
        converted.hash = resp["Hash"];

How to deserialise a byte array containing HTTP POST parameters from a .NET WebClient

1 Answers