C# example of downloading GitHub private repo programmatically

Question

I see that the download path for a GitHub repo is of the form

https://github.com/{username}/{reponame}/archive/{branchname}.zip

For a private repo, understandably you need to provide credentials in order to download the repo, can anyone provide a C# example on how to provide a HTTPS basic authentication so I can download the repo programmatically?

Thanks,

Answer 1

See this guide on creating a personal access token then run the following:

var githubToken = "token";
var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://api.github.com/repos/$OWNER/$REPO/contents/$PATH");
request.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.Authorization, string.Concat("token ", githubToken));
request.Accept = "application/vnd.github.v3.raw";
request.UserAgent = "test app"; //user agent is required https://developer.github.com/v3/#user-agent-required
using (var response = request.GetResponse())
{
    var encoding = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.UTF8;
    using (var reader = new System.IO.StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream(), encoding))
    {
        var fileContent = reader.ReadToEnd();
    }
}

Answer 2

Here is a pure C# way:

var githubToken = "[token]";
var url = "https://github.com/[username]/[repository]/archive/[sha1|tag].zip";
var path = @"[local path]";

using (var client = new System.Net.Http.HttpClient())
{
    var credentials = string.Format(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0}:", githubToken);
    credentials = Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(credentials));
    client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new System.Net.Http.Headers.AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", credentials);
    var contents = client.GetByteArrayAsync(url).Result;
    System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(path, contents);
}