Question

I need to download a text file from the internet using C#. The file size can be quite large and the information I need is always within the first 1000 bytes. Is this possible?

Answer 1

Stolen from here.

string GetWebPageContent(string url)
{
    string result = string.Empty;
    HttpWebRequest request;
    const int bytesToGet = 1000;
    request = WebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest;

    //get first 1000 bytes
    request.AddRange(0, bytesToGet - 1);

    // the following code is alternative, you may implement the function after your needs
    using (WebResponse response = request.GetResponse())
    {
        using (Stream stream = response.GetResponseStream())
        {
            byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
            int read = stream.Read(buffer, 0, 1000);
            Array.Resize(ref buffer, read);
            return Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer);
        }

    }
}

(Edited as requested in the comments… 😉 )