Error 400 - Bad Request

[KavitaA]

Hi,

I keep hitting this error 400 - Bad Request if I try to add a new list or add a new contact to existing list. I tried the GET function and it worked beautifully so I know there is nothing wrong with the siteurl, username, password and API Key. Please take a look at the code below.

public void AddList()

        {

            {

                try

                {                                  

                    // Create LoginCreditials

                    CredentialCache LoginCredentials = new CredentialCache();

                   

                    // Add a new credential for this account

                    LoginCredentials.Add(new Uri("https://api.constantcontact.com/ws/customers/myusername"),

                                                "Basic", new NetworkCredential("xxx-MyKey-xxx" +

                                                "%" + "myusername", "mypassword"));

                   

                    string sUri = "https://api.constantcontact.com/ws/customers/myusername/lists";



                    //Setup an HttpWebRequest to send the data

                    Uri addresss = new Uri(sUri);



                    HttpWebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(addresss) as HttpWebRequest;



                    request.Credentials = LoginCredentials;



                    request.Method = "POST";



                    request.ContentType = "application/atom+xml";                                      



                    StringBuilder requestParam = new StringBuilder();



                    requestParam.Append("OptInDefault=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode("false"));

                    requestParam.Append("&Name=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode("NewList"));

                    requestParam.Append("&ShortName=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode("NewL"));

                    requestParam.Append("&DisplayOnSignup=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode("No"));

                    requestParam.Append("&SortOrder=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode("92"));                  

                   

                    //The response (returned as 'strResponse') will be XML. You can parse this for status messages if you like, or just ignore it.



                    byte[] byteData = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(requestParam.ToString());



                    string st = string.Empty;



                    request.ContentLength = byteData.Length;



                    using (Stream postStream = request.GetRequestStream())

                    {

                        postStream.Write(byteData, 0, byteData.Length);

                    }



                    using (HttpWebResponse response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse)

                    {



                        StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());



                        st = reader.ReadToEnd();

                    }

                }

                catch (WebException e)

                {

                    // Get the web exception type and response code

                    MessageBox.Show(e.Status + "With response:" + e.Message);

                }

                catch (Exception e)

                {

                    // Get the exception type

                    MessageBox.Show(e.Message);



                }

            }

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Kavita

[DaveBerard]

Hi Kavita,

The reason you are receiving 400 requests is that the data you are sending is not a well formed XML request to add or update a contact.  You can find out more information on how to create the structure of the XML here.  I would recommend checking our our ASP.NET sample code, which is written in C#, instead as it will probably save you alot of time developing.  You can find the sample code here.  

[KavitaA]

The Sample code really helped.

Thanks Dave!