.net - C# example of downloading GitHub private repo programmatically

Question

I see that the download path for a GitHub repo is of the form

https://github.com/{username}/{reponame}/archive/{branchname}.zip

For a private repo, understandably you need to provide credentials in order to download the repo, can anyone provide a C# example on how to provide a HTTPS basic authentication so I can download the repo programmatically?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Here is a pure C# way:

var githubToken = "[token]";
var url = "https://github.com/[username]/[repository]/archive/[sha1|tag].zip";
var path = @"[local path]";

using (var client = new System.Net.Http.HttpClient())
{
    var credentials = string.Format(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0}:", githubToken);
    credentials = Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(credentials));
    client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new System.Net.Http.Headers.AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", credentials);
    var contents = client.GetByteArrayAsync(url).Result;
    System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(path, contents);
}