[Vb.Net] ? Example code for logging into a website programmatically

[rapid-ddldotcom]

The example below uses HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes to log in to Facebook.

Dim cookieJar As New Net.CookieContainer()
        Dim request As Net.HttpWebRequest
        Dim response As Net.HttpWebResponse
        Dim strURL As String

        Try
            'Get Cookies
            strURL = "https://login.facebook.com/login.php"
            request = Net.HttpWebRequest.Create(strURL)
            request.UserAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3"
            request.Method = "GET"
            request.CookieContainer = cookieJar
            response = request.GetResponse()

            For Each tempCookie As Net.Cookie In response.Cookies
                cookieJar.Add(tempCookie)
            Next

            'Send the post data now
            request = Net.HttpWebRequest.Create(strURL)
            request.UserAgent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3"
            request.Method = "POST"
            request.AllowAutoRedirect = True
            request.CookieContainer = cookieJar

            Dim writer As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream())
            writer.Write("email=username&pass=password")
            writer.Close()
            response = request.GetResponse()

            'Get the data from the page
            Dim stream As StreamReader = New StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())
            Dim data As String = stream.ReadToEnd()
            response.Close()

            If data.Contains("<title>Facebook") = True Then
                'LOGGED IN SUCCESSFULLY
            End If

        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
        End Try


Now, here is some explanation.
             For Each tempCookie As Net.Cookie In response.Cookies
                cookieJar.Add(tempCookie)
            Next
 The block of code above gets all the cookies and stores it in a  collection, which are returned upon visiting the webpage: https://login.facebook.com/login.php.  These cookies are important because they must be passed back to the  webpage when you are going to login.
             Dim writer As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream())
            writer.Write("email=username&pass=password")
            writer.Close()
 The code above creates a StreamWriter class and writes the post data to  it. You can pass any data here to the website in name=value&name=value  format.
             Dim stream As StreamReader = New StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())
            Dim data As String = stream.ReadToEnd()
            response.Close()

            If data.Contains("<title>Facebook") = True Then
                'LOGGED IN SUCCESSFULLY
            End If

^ Finally, it gets the source code of the webpage returned which is the homepage of your account (i.e home.php), and checks if you are logged in successfully or not.
I hope this code will help you to save some time. If you find it useful then do let me know via your comments.

rapid-ddldotcom Reviewed by rapid-ddldotcom on 20th Jun 2010. [Vb.Net] ? Example code for logging into a website programmatically The example below uses HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes to log in to Facebook. Dim cookieJar As New Net.CookieContainer() Dim request As Net.HttpWebRequest Dim response As Net.HttpWebResponse Dim strURL As String Try 'Get Cookies strURL = "https://login.facebook.com/login.php" Rating: 5