Exercise: Build an HTTP API Client

Create a .NET console application that will add a randomly-generated vehicles to the Autobarn platform every time the user presses a key.

Dylan’s server is running at https://autobarn.dev

• The modelCode should be selected at random from the codes returned by the API endpoint.
• The list of model codes should be cached so it’s only retrieved once, when your application first starts
• The year should be a random integer between 1960 and 2025
• The color should be one of the CSS named colours:
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/named-color
• The registration should be 8 randomly generated characters in the range A-Z 0-9.

Hints

• Use the System.Net.HttpClient class to make HTTP requests and handle responses; you’ll find lots of information about how to use this class at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fundamentals/networking/http/httpclient

• Wrap the raw HttpClient in a wrapper class which exposes strongly-typed methods that abstract away the HTTP details in favour of business-level operations:

  public class AutobarnApiClient(HttpClient http) {
    
  	public string[] ListModelCodes() {
          // TODO: list all model codes from GET /api/models
      }
    
      public VehicleDto CreateRandomVehicle() {
          // TODO: generate a random vehicle 
  	}
  }
  

• System.Random.Shared provides an instance of the System.Random random number generator you can use to generate random numbers; use the .Next(10) method to generate a random integer between 0 and 10