C# 0 The Complete Reference

System.IO

 is included. This namespace is needed because the information from the 

website is read using a 

Stream

 object.

The program begins by creating a 

WebRequest

 object that contains the desired URI. 

Notice that the 

Create( )

 method, rather than a constructor, is used for this purpose. 

Create( )

is a 

static

 member of 

WebRequest

. Even though 

WebRequest

 is an abstract class, it is still 

possible to call a 

static

 method of that class. 

Create( )

 returns a 

WebRequest

 object that has 

the proper protocol “plugged in,” based on the protocol prefix of the URI. In this case, the 

protocol is HTTP. Thus, 

Create( )

 returns an 

HttpWebRequest

 object. Of course, its return 

value must still be cast to 

HttpWebRequest

 when it is assigned to the 

HttpWebRequest

reference called 

req

. At this point, the request has been created, but not yet sent to the 

specified URI.

To send the request, the program calls