Question

I’m new to C# and trying to get my head around why the code below isn’t working. I’ve tried to make a custom class HtmlRequest that isn’t static so can be instantiated as many times as required using HtmlRequest someVar = new HtmlRequest();

return sb is holding the value but it’s not being returned to hmtmlString on the line htmlString = htmlReq.getHtml(uri).

I’ve tried putting Get{code …return sb;} after public class HtmlRequest but can’t get the correct syntax

   public partial class MainWindow : DXWindow
    {

            private void GetLinks()
            {
                HtmlRequest htmlReq = new HtmlRequest();
                Uri uri = new Uri("http://stackoverflow.com/");
                StringBuilder htmlString = new StringBuilder();
                htmlString = htmlReq.getHtml(uri); //nothing returned on htmlString

            }

    }

    public class HtmlRequest
    {

        public StringBuilder getHtml(Uri uri)
        {
                // used to build entire input
                StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

                // used on each read operation
                byte[] buf = new byte[8192];

                // prepare the web page we will be asking for
                HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uri);

                // execute the request
                HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

                // we will read data via the response stream
                Stream resStream = response.GetResponseStream();

                string tempString = null;
                int count = 0;

                Do
                {
                    // fill the buffer with data
                    count = resStream.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);

                    // make sure we read some data
                    if (count != 0)
                    {
                        // translate from bytes to ASCII text
                        tempString = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buf, 0, count);

                        // continue building the string
                        sb.Append(tempString);
                    }
                }
                while (count > 0); // any more data to read?

                return sb;

        }

    }

If I put a breakpoint on return sb; then the variable is correct but is not returning it.
It’s probably something really obvious, can someone explain why it’s not working and how to fix it?

Thank you

Answer 1

Try using the value instead of immediately exiting the method. An optimized build won’t save the return value if it isn’t used.