Are you tired of writing code to call HTTP APIs that's difficult to read, write, and maintain? Do you require high-performance when working on your projects? Then, you need to try out Flurl!

Flurl is a free and open-source library for .NET that helps in creating fluent URLs and API requests to make HTTP calls easier to read, write, and maintain. With Flurl, you can write easily readable and high-performance code that's a pleasure to work with.

The Benefits of Flurl

Flurl promotes clean and expressive code that's easy to write, read, and maintain. It's fluent interface eliminates the need for verbose and repetitious code that commonly plagues API request libraries. Here's a quick rundown on the benefits of using Flurl:

1. Fluent Interface

Flurl's fluent interface is a core perk of the library. This interface makes creating URLs and API requests easy and intuitive regardless of the type of request or data required. It eliminates the need for nesting templates or expressions, making API calls simple and quick.

2. Asynchronous Calls

In today's age of high-speed data transfer, the need for asynchronous calls is critical for maintaining app performance. Flurl has async variant methods that enable you to run code without blocking until the response arrives.

3. Lambda Expressions

Flurl also provides powerful support for lambda expressions. Using lambda expressions in Flurl's API requests enables you to quickly extract data from HTTP responses, apply custom logic, and perform advanced data processing operations.

4. Integration with ASP.NET Core

Flurl integrates seamlessly with ASP.NET Core. This means you can use Flurl with your existing ASP.NET Core projects without having to re-architect the entire application. It's also lightweight, so you don't need to worry about your app’s performance.

5. Response Caching

Flurl supports response caching so you can cache API responses to reduce API calls and improve app performance. Flurl's response caching also includes Etag support, which ensures cached data remains valid until it changes on the server.

6. Fluent Assertions

Flurl supports assertions to ensure that what you request is what you get. These assertions can be included in your code and enables you to test the API responses, which is essential for ensuring that your code works as expected.

How to Use Flurl

Now that the benefits of Flurl are clear, let's walk through how to use it. First, you must download and install Flurl from NuGet, which is the most popular development package manager for .NET.

Once installed, you can now use the Fluent interface to query and write API responses. Here's an example of how to use Flurl to call a simple GET request against an external API:

```

using Flurl;

using Flurl.Http;

// Call GitHub to bring back details about the latest version of Flurl

var latestFlurlVersion = "https://api.github.com/repos/tmenier/Flurl/releases/latest"

.WithHeaders(new { Accept = "application/vnd.github+json" })

.GetJsonAsync().Result;

System.Console.WriteLine($"Latest version of Flurl is {latestFlurlVersion["tag_name"]}");

```

As the code shows here, we can create a simple GET request by chaining URL expressions off of the Flurl’s main URL object. We can even add all the header values and then get the response back as a JSON object.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Flurl is a lightweight and powerful open-source library for .NET that greatly simplifies the process of making HTTP requests with its fluent interface, async calls, lambda expressions, and other features. Integrating Flurl with ASP.NET Core is seamless without any performance overhead. Above all, Flurl promotes clean and expressive code that's easy to write, read, and maintain. Try out Flurl today and streamline your API requests with ease!