Creating an Authority Using REST (C#)

[This document supports a preliminary release of a software product that may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release. This document is provided for informational purposes only.]

As described in Creating an Authority Using REST, the following C# example creates an authority. The application performs the following steps:

• Create an XML payload describing the authority.
• Initialize a WebRequest instance with the service URI as the parameter. Requests to create an authority are sent to the service. In the request, the Content-Type request header is set to application/x-ssds+xml because the request payload is XML.
• Send the request.
• Process the response. If authority creation is successful, application prints the message accordingly.

If you are using the Microsoft Visual Studio integrated development environment, create a console application, and then add the following code.

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
using System.IO;
using System.Security;

namespace CreateAuthorityUsingREST
{
    class Program
    {
        // Provide your values for these members variables
        private static string userName;
        private static string password;
        private const string sampleAuthorityId = "<ProvideAuthorityID>";

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.Write("Username: ");
            userName = Console.ReadLine();
            Console.Write("Password: ");
            password = ReadPassword();

            string ServiceUri = "https://data.database.windows.net/v1/";  
           string authorityUri = CreateAuthority(ServiceUri);
        }

        private static string CreateAuthority(string serviceUri)
        {
            // Template to create authority request body. The only thing that 
            // is variable is the authority id.
            const string AuthorityTemplate =
                      @"<s:Authority xmlns:s='https://schemas.microsoft.com/sitka/2008/03/'>
                        <s:Id>{0}</s:Id>
                      </s:Authority>";

            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(serviceUri))
            {
                throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("ServiceUri");
            }

            string authorityUri = null;
            try
            {
                // Data going over to the server
                string requestPayload = string.Format(AuthorityTemplate, sampleAuthorityId);

                HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(serviceUri);
                // Security requirement - need to pass userid, password
                request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(userName, password);

                // POST=create; PUT=update; DELETE=delete; GET=retrieve
                request.Method = "POST";
                UTF8Encoding encoding = new UTF8Encoding();
                request.ContentLength = encoding.GetByteCount(requestPayload);
                request.ContentType = "application/x-ssds+xml";

                // Write the request data over the wire (1st container).
                using (Stream reqStm = request.GetRequestStream())
                {
                    reqStm.Write(encoding.GetBytes(requestPayload), 0, encoding.GetByteCount(requestPayload));
                }

                // Get the response and read it in to a string.
                using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
                {
                    if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.Created)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Authority created");
                        // Since current implementation returns response.Headers[HttpResponseHeader.Location]
                        // value null, construct authority URI
                        authorityUri = String.Format("https://{0}.data.database.windows.net/v1/", sampleAuthorityId);

                    }
                    else
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Failed to create authority");
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (WebException ex)
            {
                using (HttpWebResponse response = ex.Response as HttpWebResponse)
                {
                    if (response != null)
                    {
                        string errorMsg = ReadResponse(response);
                        Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Error: {0}", errorMsg));
                        Console.WriteLine("Unexpected status code returned: {0} ", response.StatusCode);
                    }
                }
            }

            return authorityUri;
        }

        public static string ReadResponse(HttpWebResponse response)
        {
            // Begin by validating our inbound parameters.
            //
            if (response == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("response", "Value cannot be null");
            }

            // Then, open up a reader to the response and read the contents to a string
            // and return that to the caller.
            //
            string responseBody = "";
            using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
            {
                // NOTE: Assumption here is that the string isn't large.  
                responseBody = reader.ReadToEnd();
                reader.Close();
            }

            return responseBody;
        }

        private static string ReadPassword()
        {
            StringBuilder retval = new StringBuilder();
            ConsoleKeyInfo keyInfo;
            while ((keyInfo = Console.ReadKey(true)).Key != ConsoleKey.Enter)
            {
                Console.Write("*");
                retval.Append(keyInfo.KeyChar);
            }
            Console.WriteLine();

            return retval.ToString();
        }
    }
}

To verify that the authority was created, enter the authority URI in the Web browser.

https://<authority-id>.data.database.windows.net/v1/

This returns authority metadata as shown in the following sample XML:

<s:Authority 
   xmlns:s="https://schemas.microsoft.com/sitka/2008/03/" 
   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
   xmlns:x="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<s:Id>NewAuthorityID</s:Id>
<s:Version>version-number</s:Version>
</s:Authority>

See Also

Concepts

Creating an Authority Using REST
Guidelines and Limitations