HttpNAnt

Introduction

A custom NAnt task that allows HTTP requests to be made to a REST web service from a NAnt script. The task supports all the HTTP methods and allows you to specify the content type and the content itself. You can also retrieve the response content and status code through properties set by the task.

Using the task

Using the task is simple. The only mandatory attribute is url and the default HTTP method is GET. Here is a sample NAnt project showing how to use the task.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Http">
	<http url="http://httpbin.org/get"
        method="GET"
        contenttype="application/json"
        connectiontimeout="30"
        responseproperty="response"
        statuscodeproperty="status"
        failonerror="true" 
        username="jdoe"
        password="53cr34" />

  <echo message="Response: ${response}" />
  <echo message="Status Code: ${status}" />
</project>

You can provide content when using the POST method via the content attribute.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Http">
	<http url="http://httpbin.org/post"
        method="POST"
        contenttype="application/json"
        connectiontimeout="30"
        responseproperty="response"
        statuscodeproperty="status"
        failonerror="true" 
        username="jdoe"
        password="53cr34"
        content="{ &quot;greeting&quot; : &quot;Hello world!&quot; }" />

  <echo message="Response: ${response}" />
  <echo message="Status Code: ${status}" />
</project>

Authentication, if enabled via the username and password attributes, uses Basic Authentication.

Building the solution

After pulling down the source build the solution with Visual Studio or by running msbuild Source\HttpNAnt.sln from the command line. The Dist folder will contain the AlexMG.HttpNAnt.dll assembly. The compiled assembly has the Microsoft.Http.dll assembly from the WCF REST Starter Kit merged into it using the ILMerge tool. This makes deployment easier by removing the chance of accidentally forgetting to deploy the dependency.