Xamarin PCL that makes requests to REST service and returns models - xamarin.android

Question

So as recommended I'd like to use RestSharp to handle REST web service. I am developing iOS and Android application and I would love to make PCL that makes requests to the service and just returns parsed results (eg. array of User objects).
So how do I get RestSharp in my PCL, tried NuGet, components are not for PCLs and seriously bad would be to just download source files and copy them in the project, I want to keep some dependency management in place.
What is the best practice? Am I looking at this problem at wrong angle?

Answer 1

RestSharp doesn't support PCLs. I'd suggest checking out PortableRest, or just using a combination of HttpClient and Json.NET.

Answer 2

I use dependency injection so I can support non-PCL JSON parsers. I also plan to give the native HttpClient wrappers from the component store a try. By using non-PCL code you will gain quite a lot in performance compared to Json.NET etc.
Link to source code
Text library has serializer interfaces, Web has the IRestClient.
Modern HTTP Client from the component store.

Answer 3

Below modifications worked for me and will be glad if it works out to you.
Try using modernhttpclient in your PCL. And inAndroid project ensure you have the below packages.
Microsoft.Bcl.Build
Microsoft.Bcl
Microsoft.Net.Http
modernhttpclient
Along with that in application manifest under required permissions give permissions to the below.
Access_Network_State
Access_wifi_state
Internet
Ideally when you try to add Microsoft.Bcl into your Android project targettting monoandroid it will throw out error, so try to add the nuget refrence in the above order.

Answer 4

I developed a really simple REST client to perform Http requests easily. You can check it on my Github repo. The API is really simple:
await new Request<T>()
.SetHttpMethod(HttpMethod.[Post|Put|Get|Delete].Method) //Obligatory
.SetEndpoint("http://www.yourserver.com/profilepic/") //Obligatory
.SetJsonPayload(someJsonObject) //Optional if you're using Get or Delete, Obligatory if you're using Put or Post
.OnSuccess((serverResponse) => {
//Optional action triggered when you have a succesful 200 response from the server
//serverResponse is of type T
})
.OnNoInternetConnection(() =>
{
// Optional action triggered when you try to make a request without internet connetion
})
.OnRequestStarted(() =>
{
// Optional action triggered always as soon as we start making the request i.e. very useful when
// We want to start an UI related action such as showing a ProgressBar or a Spinner.
})
.OnRequestCompleted(() =>
{
// Optional action triggered always when a request finishes, no matter if it finished successufully or
// It failed. It's useful for when you need to finish some UI related action such as hiding a ProgressBar or
// a Spinner.
})
.OnError((exception) =>
{
// Optional action triggered always when something went wrong it can be caused by a server-side error, for
// example a internal server error or for something in the callbacks, for example a NullPointerException.
})
.OnHttpError((httpErrorStatus) =>
{
// Optional action triggered when something when sending a request, for example, the server returned a internal
// server error, a bad request error, an unauthorize error, etc. The httpErrorStatus variable is the error code.
})
.OnBadRequest(() =>
{
// Optional action triggered when the server returned a bad request error.
})
.OnUnauthorize(() =>
{
// Optional action triggered when the server returned an unauthorize error.
})
.OnInternalServerError(() =>
{
// Optional action triggered when the server returned an internal server error.
})
//AND THERE'S A LOT MORE OF CALLBACKS THAT YOU CAN HOOK OF, CHECK THE REQUEST CLASS TO MORE INFO.
.Start();