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Home » Web Forms » Posting form data from ASP.NET page to another URL

Posting form data from ASP.NET page to another URL
By  Jigar Desai September 27, 2004

This article shows you how to post a Form data to a different URL from ASP.NET pages. For example, you might need to send user to a third party payment processing system using post method. ASP.NET does not provide any straight forward way to accomplish this task.
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Technologies: .NET 1.0/1.1, ASP.NET 1.0,Visual C# .NET
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Introduction

Sometime you need to post a form to an different url from asp.net pages, for example you might need to send user to third party payment processing system using post method, asp.net does not provide any straight forward way to accomplish this task.

Problem which most users faces with server side form in aspx page are, you are not allowed to change action of form and you are allowed to use only one server side form per page.

Possible Solutions

  1. One possible solution to this problem is to Create your own form control and use it on page this will allow you to change action of form, but again what if you do not want some existing input elements in current page to go to post.
  2. There is good way to post form data using HttpWebResponse & HttpWebRequest class if you want to post data behind the scenes, but if you want to post data using user browser then you are stuck.

Our Solution

I will try to show you one possible way to accomplish this task, we will create

  1. component that will create form with required fields and post the form to specified url, 
  2. web page that will use that component to post data and 
  3. page which will receive that data and display posted data.

A) RemotePost Class.

public class RemotePost
{
private System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection Inputs = new System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection();
public string Url = "";
public string Method = "post";
public string FormName = "form1";
public void Add(string name,string value)
{
Inputs.Add(name,value);
}
public void Post()
{
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("");
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("",FormName));
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("",FormName,Method,Url))
for(int i=0;i< Inputs.Keys.Count;i++)
{
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("",Inputs.Keys[i],Inputs[Inputs.Keys[i]]));
}
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("");
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("");
System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.End();
}
}

Properties of our component 

  1. "Url" which is action of our form. 
  2. "Method" which is Method of our form, default is Post but you can also use Get 
  3. "FormName" which is name of form.

Methods of our component. 

  1. "Add" which will be used to add form input name and value. and 
  2. "Post" which will render html on page to do actual posting, most important part of this method is onload event of rendered html's body which will post form to specified URL.

and private field Inputs which will hold name value pair collection of all inputs that goes into form.

you can compile this class to dll and use in your project but for simplicity I am including that class directly into page itself.

B) Sample Page.

Following is sample page code which posts form to specified url.

RemotePost myremotepost = new RemotePost();
myremotepost.Url = http://www.jigar.net/demo/HttpRequestDemoServer.aspx;
myremotepost.Add("field1","Huckleberry");
myremotepost.Add("field2","Finn");
myremotepost.Post() ;

C) Receiving Page.

Following is sample page code which posts form to specified url.

This is the page where posting will occur for simplicity we will just write posed value so that we can know what was posted.

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<script runat="server">
void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e){
if (Request.Form["field1" != null ){
Response.Write("field1 : " + Request.Form["field1" + "")}
if(Request.Form["field2" != null ){
Response.Write("field2 : " +Request.Form["field2" + "")}
}
</script> 

Run Sample

Click "http://www.jigar.net/demo/RemotePost.aspx" target="new">here to run sample

There will be cases where you will need to tweak the code to suit your requirement. you will also need to check scenario where user uses back button of browser(from posted page) which will cause form to be posted again.

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 About the author
 
Jigar Desai
Jigar Desai is a Microsoft certified professional and has 8 years of experience in Microsoft technologies, he is working in asp.net since pre beta releases and has extensive experience in developing database driven web application. When he is not working with asp.net and SqlServer he likes to do experiments with GDI+ and Content automation in webapplications.
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 Comments
string formatting by martin On April 29, 2006

 

Hi desaijm,

 

Im trying to use you code, but unfortunately it is not working. Without knowing anything about the

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response

class, I have been debugging your code. And it is obvious to me, that something is wrong in the post() method.

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("",FormName));

doesn't write anything at all, even though FormName has a value. I replaced

the line with

string a=(string.Format("",FormName));

And the string a is EMPTY. Dont know anything about the string.format method either, but i know that sending nothing DOES nothing.

 

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Re: string formatting by Mark On September 9, 2008
hi this code helps a lot with my payment processing app... 2 things i want the form1 to submit automatically onload rather than by a button. how do i do this ? the action url is passed from the calling page... how do i use this in remotepost.aspx rather than a hard coded one ? it will pass in the querystring probably... thanks
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
C# Corner HTML problem? by Robert On February 21, 2007
I think the string.Format commands should have HTML instead of the empty strings. I wonder if it's a problem on this website that interpretted the HTML tags as actual tags instead of displaying them in the page. I tried to view source on the page but I can't see any tags so they must have been rendered out previously.
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Re: C# Corner HTML problem? by Michael On April 29, 2007

Yes, the HTML did get stripped.

To view what was supposed to be there, download the sample files (top right corner, right above the ad). It's not easy to type in here, so I'll just leave it to you to download it.

Dekker
www.WoodworkDetails.com

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Re: C# Corner HTML problem? by whoever On March 14, 2007
Nice trick. Thanks
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howto: Open in a new window by Henrik On May 2, 2007
Hi, I have used your code and it works fine - I have one question though; I can't have it to open in a new window - like 'target="_blank"' - any help?
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
thanks by Dan On May 7, 2007
just what i needed
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Can't download by Anders On May 16, 2007
Clicking on zip-file leads to "empty" browser window. Right clicking and "Save target as.." leads to "No such interface supported". Vista problem / IE7 problem?
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
cool by fabrizio On June 20, 2007
simple and effective
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
No JavaScript??? by Ian On September 3, 2007
Hi, One criticism I have is that if the browser does not support JavaScript, the page will not be posted. IJ
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
You are the man by Carlos On September 6, 2007
This is just exactly what i needed, damn, i had like 5 days breaking my head looking for this exactly thing, thank you very much, worked like a wonder once i found out what to put on those empty strings, xD
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
hi by venkat On October 18, 2007
i developed one eshopping site . can i use this process to connect to sites like yourpay.com,paypal.com. How can i pass some of my details to those sites.. give me some examples how can i pass my values to yourpay.com.
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Using this with asp.net master pages? by Eric On October 28, 2007
How would i go about using this example if the form i want to submit is conntained in a content palceholder page that is attached to an asp.net master page?
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
body onload function by Daniel On November 5, 2007
Hi your class is funcion correctly but i have a problem when open the pop up page, because the parent page is has been clear, how do i to avoid? or load page in the same page?... best regards.
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Re: body onload function by Amy On March 21, 2008
I have same issue. Have you got this issue resolved yet? Thanks,HZ.
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Re: body onload function by Denis On October 7, 2008
I use target="_blank" to point to a new page. In order to have the orginal page then reload I had to change the post method by adding a javascript calling a redirect after a second or so. This gives time for the form to post and then the page point back to the orginal page. Code below, changes in bold. Would love to see if someone else has a different/better solution.

public void Post()
{
    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();

    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("<html><head>");
    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("<script> function redirect() { window.location = 'Default.aspx'} </script>");

    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("</head><body onload=\"document.{0}.submit(); setTimeout('redirect()', 2000)\">", FormName));
    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("<form name=\"{0}\" method=\"{1}\" action=\"{2}\" target=\"_blank\" >", FormName, Method, Url));
    for (int i = 0; i < Inputs.Keys.Count; i++)
    {
        System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(string.Format("<input name=\"{0}\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"{1}\">", Inputs.Keys[i], Inputs[Inputs.Keys[i]]));
    }
    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("</form>");
    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("</body></html>");

    System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.End();
}
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Re: Re: body onload function by pay On November 17, 2008

I use below for resolve this problem.

Current.Response.Write(String.Format("</head><body onload=""document.{0}.submit(); window.history.back()"">", FormName))

Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
body onload function by Daniel On November 5, 2007
Hi your class is funcion correctly but i have a problem when open the pop up page, because the parent page is has been clear, how do i to avoid? or load page in the same page?... best regards.
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Thanks by Alex On December 11, 2007
Nice trick...it really helped me
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Could not get it to work by sree_sundaram On March 14, 2008
I am trying to get it to go to Paypal site. I have replicated the code exactly as is. However, the page does not navigate to Paypal site. Instead, it posts back to itself. I have tried setting the action property to an empty string in the form tog but it puts back to its own page (the default in ASP.NET 2.0). Any ideas will be appreciated.
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Browser back button by Jim On March 21, 2008
Is there any way to get the back button to go to the original page, ie the page before the 'generated' form submit page?
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2 questions by Mark On September 9, 2008
hi this code helps a lot with my payment processing app... 2 things i want the form1 to submit automatically onload rather than by a button. how do i do this ? the action url is passed from the calling page... how do i use this in remotepost.aspx rather than a hard coded one ? it will pass in the querystring probably... thanks
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
2 questions by Mark On September 9, 2008
hi this code helps a lot with my payment processing app... 2 things i want the form1 to submit automatically onload rather than by a button. how do i do this ? the action url is passed from the calling page... how do i use this in remotepost.aspx rather than a hard coded one ? it will pass in the querystring probably... thanks
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
2 questions by Mark On September 9, 2008
hi this code helps a lot with my payment processing app... 2 things i want the form1 to submit automatically onload rather than by a button. how do i do this ? the action url is passed from the calling page... how do i use this in remotepost.aspx rather than a hard coded one ? it will pass in the querystring probably... thanks
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
2 questions by Mark On September 9, 2008
hi this code helps a lot with my payment processing app... 2 things i want the form1 to submit automatically onload rather than by a button. how do i do this ? the action url is passed from the calling page... how do i use this in remotepost.aspx rather than a hard coded one ? it will pass in the querystring probably... thanks
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
remote post class by sathiya On October 16, 2008
This is working fine for me. But i got the exception "[System.Threading.ThreadAbortException] = {Unable to evaluate expression because the code is optimized or a native frame is on top of the call stack.}" how can i restrict this one in my page Kindly help me on this Needs urgent Thanks Sathiya
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Was very helpful. Thanks. by Samir On February 6, 2009
Hi Jigar, This article came to my viewing just when I needed it. I wanted to post back a form back to 2 different pages based on certain condition. One of the page is classic asp. This helps me achieve that. Thanks Samir
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Thank you! by James On February 20, 2009
Thank you very much for posting this article. I was in a bind and it was exactly what I needed. I had to integrate a new asp.net form with and old asp paypal processor page. This code worked perfect! Note: I did need to download the code to get it to work. The code in the article did not work for me. Thank you again for posting this! James

www.alavri.com
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Thank You Very Much! by Jonny On March 11, 2009
This is exactly what I was looking for!
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Thank you!, Muchas Gracias Jigar by marcos On March 12, 2009

Después de mucho buscar encontré en tu artículo una brillante solución a cambiar la página de destino de un form usando C#. Muchas gracias por compartir.

También necesité descargar el adjunto para conseguir que funcionara.

Marcos

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Error by michael On May 20, 2009

Hi, thanks for the code.  I've converted it to vb.net, but i'm getting error Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerParserErrorException:  The message received fro mthe server could not be parsed.  Common causes for this error are when the sresponse is modofied by calls to Response.Write().respons filters, HpptModules, or server trace is enabled.

Details : Error parsing near '<html><head></head><'.
code 0

Url: http://localhost:1036/mysite.com/learnmore.aspx

can anyone tell me how to fix this...i'm a bit of a noob.

Public Class RemotePost

Private Inputs As New System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection()

Public Url As String = ""

Public Method As String = "post"

Public FormName As String = "form1"

 

Public Sub Add(ByVal name As String, ByVal value As String)

Inputs.Add(name, value)

End Sub

 

Public Sub Post()

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear()

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("<html><head>")

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(String.Format("</head><body onload=""document.{0}.submit()"">", FormName))

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(String.Format("<form name=""{0}"" method=""{1}"" action=""{2}"" >", FormName, Method, Url))

For i As Integer = 0 To Inputs.Keys.Count - 1

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(String.Format("<input name=""{0}"" type=""hidden"" value=""{1}"">", Inputs.Keys(i), Inputs(Inputs.Keys(i))))

Next

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("</form>")

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.Write("</body></html>")

System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Response.[End]()

End Sub

End Class

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Re: Error by michael On May 20, 2009
Oh i'm calling the code from the submit button of an update panel by the way......does this matter?
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thanks by carlos On June 3, 2009
i think is a great code.  thanks.
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Excellent by jaime On July 13, 2009
Simple, nice!!!

Just a comment. The code shown is not right, so you have to download the code to get the correct version.

Thanks a lot.-
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Great Logic Sir... by Ashish On September 17, 2009
Ohh....Thats really great logic implemented with a great treak..so much impressive....Thanks..Thanks a lot....
Reply | Email | Delete | Modify | 
Great! by Maxence On September 30, 2009
This class is very useful, thanks a lot.

Warning: The good code is under the attached .zip
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Absolutely great! by Onur On October 31, 2009
Thank you Jigar. Your solution has been a great time saver. Instead of trying to figure out how to come up with a solution to this exact problem, I was able to use your solution with minor adjustments.

Note to viewers: Download the code in the zip format. The displayed program logic has been stripped of necessary html code.
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