Question

In console application i need to capture the output. There are 2 scenarios:

• Internet cannot display webpage
• Internet is working.

I am using below code

using(WebClient client = new WebClient())
{
    string pageData;
    try
    {
        pageData = client.DownloadString("https://google.com");
    }
    catch (HttpListenerException e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Exception is" + e);
    }

Here I need to apply a condition that if Internet Explorer is displaying “Internet explorer cannot display the webpage” then it should show no connection. I need to capture the output.

Answer 1

You need to catch the WebException which is thrown when the web client cannot dowload the page for any reason. Try this:

public static bool IsAlive(string url)
{
    bool isAlive = false;
    using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
    {
        try
        {
            var content = client.DownloadString(url);
            // if we got this far there was no error fetching the content
            isAlive = true;
        }
        catch (WebException ex)
        {
            // could not fetch page - can output reason here if required
            Console.WriteLine("Error when fetching {0}: {1}", url, ex);
        }

    }

    return isAlive;
}

See the WebClient documentation on MSDN for more detail.