C# Using HTTPClient to 'Navigate' a Website

Question

So I am just beginning to learn C#, and one of my main goals is to be able to 'navigate' a website. I have done minimal research and have found that the two primary was to do this would be HTTPClient and Requests, and I would like to learn this through HTTPClient.

Now what I mean by navigate is to essentially bot a website for practice. This is like clicking buttons, putting text into fields, etc.

If anyone can give me an idea on where to start with this it would be much appreciated! Not looking for code specifically, just looking for what I should learn in HTTPClient to make this happen. Thanks!

Answer 1

I think that you are a little confused about the concepts. HTTPClient send requests to some site, but you cannot click buttons or "navigate" inside the site.

If youre looking for a way to test some site, i recommend you learn about cypress.io. You can add text to your textboxes, click buttons or navigate in any site. All of this with a few lines of code with Javascript. Its free.

Otherwise, if you need to save values on a database depending of your "navigation", you have to research about scraping tools. I recommend you Selenium or any other scraping tool.

Usually HTTPClient is used when you have to consume a REST API.