Why use HttpClient for Synchronous Connection

Question

I am building a class library to interact with an API. I need to call the API and process the XML response. I can see the benefits of using HttpClient for Asynchronous connectivity, but what I am doing is purely synchronous, so I cannot see any significant benefit over using HttpWebRequest.

If anyone can shed any light I would greatly appreciate it. I am not one for using new technology for the sake of it.

Answer 1

but what i am doing is purely synchronous

You could use HttpClient for synchronous requests just fine:

using (var client = new HttpClient())
{
    var response = client.GetAsync("http://google.com").Result;

    if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
    {
        var responseContent = response.Content; 

        // by calling .Result you are synchronously reading the result
        string responseString = responseContent.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;

        Console.WriteLine(responseString);
    }
}

As far as why you should use HttpClient over WebRequest is concerned, well, HttpClient is the new kid on the block and could contain improvements over the old client.