How do you set the Content-Type header for an HttpClient request?

Question

I'm trying to set the Content-Type header of an HttpClient object as required by an API I am calling.

I tried setting the Content-Type like below:

using (var httpClient = new HttpClient())
{
    httpClient.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://example.com/");
    httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Accept", "application/json");
    httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Content-Type", "application/json");
    // ...
}

It allows me to add the Accept header but when I try to add Content-Type it throws the following exception:

Misused header name. Make sure request headers are used with HttpRequestMessage, response headers with HttpResponseMessage, and content headers with HttpContent objects.

How can I set the Content-Type header in a HttpClient request?

Answer 1

The content type is a header of the content, not of the request, which is why this is failing. AddWithoutValidation as suggested by Robert Levy may work, but you can also set the content type when creating the request content itself (note that the code snippet adds application/json in two places-for Accept and Content-Type headers):

HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://example.com/");
client.DefaultRequestHeaders
      .Accept
      .Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));//ACCEPT header

HttpRequestMessage request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Post, "relativeAddress");
request.Content = new StringContent("{\"name\":\"John Doe\",\"age\":33}",
                                    Encoding.UTF8, 
                                    "application/json");//CONTENT-TYPE header

client.SendAsync(request)
      .ContinueWith(responseTask =>
      {
          Console.WriteLine("Response: {0}", responseTask.Result);
      });