Adding API key to header for WCF service to check - rest

Question

I am implementing an api key for a basic web service I have. I am using an implementation found here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rjacobs/2010/06/14/how-to-do-api-key-verification-for-rest-services-in-net-4/
I know I have it all implemented and setup correctly on the service side but I am not sure how to pass the API key from my client. When I debug the web service upon request I don't get anything returned for my HttpRequestMessage query string. Here is code:
Web service auth manager:
public string GetAPIKey(OperationContext oc)
{
// get the request
var request = oc.RequestContext.RequestMessage;
// get HTTP request message
var requestProp = (HttpRequestMessageProperty)request.Properties[HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name];
// get the actual query string
NameValueCollection queryParams = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(requestProp.QueryString);
// return APIKey if there, NameValueCollection returns null if not present
return queryParams[APIKEY];
}
Client consumption (the part that matters):
using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
{
client.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/json");
client.Headers.Add("APIKey","my_generated_key");
client.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8;
Console.WriteLine(client.UploadString("http://my_local_host/my.svc/myCall", "POST", data));
}
During debug, the web service is always getting empty queryParams in the NameValueCollection because the query string is empty. How do I add to that query string during the request made from the client?

Answer 1

Solved. The solution was to not try to pull from the HttpRequestMessageProprty.QueryString but to just pull from the headers.
Code:
public string GetAPIKey(OperationContext oc)
{
// get the request
var request = oc.RequestContext.RequestMessage;
// get HTTP request message
var requestProp = (HttpRequestMessageProperty)request.Properties[HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name];
// get the actual query string
NameValueCollection queryParams = requestProp.Headers;
// return APIKey if there, NameValueCollection returns null if not present
return queryParams["APIKey"];
}