PowerShell WebRequest POST - powershell

Question

In Windows PowerShell 3.0 was introduced Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet.
Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet accepts -Body<Object> parameter for setting the body of the request.
Due to a certain limitations Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet could not be used in our case. From the other hand, an alternative solution described in article InvokeRestMethod for the Rest of Us suits our needs:
$request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($url)
$request.Method="Get"
$response = $request.GetResponse()
$requestStream = $response.GetResponseStream()
$readStream = New-Object System.IO.StreamReader $requestStream
$data=$readStream.ReadToEnd()
if($response.ContentType -match "application/xml") {
$results = [xml]$data
} elseif($response.ContentType -match "application/json") {
$results = $data | ConvertFrom-Json
} else {
try {
$results = [xml]$data
} catch {
$results = $data | ConvertFrom-Json
}
}
$results
But it is intended for a GET method only.
Could you please suggest how to extend this code sample with the ability to send the body of the request using POST method (similar to Body parameter in Invoke-RestMethod)?

Answer 1

First, change the line that updates the HTTP method.
$request.Method= 'POST';
Next, you need to add the message body to the HttpWebRequest object. To do that, you need to grab a reference to the request stream, and then add data to it.
$Body = [byte[]][char[]]'asdf';
$Request = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest]::CreateHttp('http://www.mywebservicethatiwanttoquery.com/');
$Request.Method = 'POST';
$Stream = $Request.GetRequestStream();
$Stream.Write($Body, 0, $Body.Length);
$Request.GetResponse();
NOTE: PowerShell Core edition is now open source on GitHub, and cross-platform on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Any issues with the Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet should be reported on the GitHub issue tracker for this project, so they can be tracked and fixed.

Answer 2

$myID = 666;
#the xml body should begin on column 1 no indentation.
$reqBody = #"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ns1:MyRequest
xmlns:ns1="urn:com:foo:bar:v1"
xmlns:ns2="urn:com:foo:xyz:v1"
<ns2:MyID>$myID</ns2:MyID>
</ns13:MyRequest>
"#
Write-Host $reqBody;
try
{
$endPoint = "http://myhost:80/myUri"
Write-Host ("Querying "+$endPoint)
$wr = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest]::Create($endPoint)
$wr.Method= 'POST';
$wr.ContentType="application/xml";
$Body = [byte[]][char[]]$reqBody;
$wr.Timeout = 10000;
$Stream = $wr.GetRequestStream();
$Stream.Write($Body, 0, $Body.Length);
$Stream.Flush();
$Stream.Close();
$resp = $wr.GetResponse().GetResponseStream()
$sr = New-Object System.IO.StreamReader($resp)
$respTxt = $sr.ReadToEnd()
[System.Xml.XmlDocument] $result = $respTxt
[String] $rs = $result.DocumentElement.OuterXml
Write-Host "$($rs)";
}
catch
{
$errorStatus = "Exception Message: " + $_.Exception.Message;
Write-Host $errorStatus;
}