Using Google API – URL shortener C#

This post aim to walkthrough the steps required to set up Google URL Shortener in C#
To get started, visit Google API Console
Head over to Services and toggle URL Shortener API to ON.
Once URL Shortner API is turned on, retrieve your API Key from API Access.

The full documentation on the URL Shortner API is available here.

The api returns a json and a regex expression may used to extract the shortened URL from the return.

private const string key = "xxxxxInsertGoogleAPIKeyHerexxxxxxxxxx";
public string urlShorter(string url)
{
            string finalURL = "";
            string post = "{\"longUrl\": \"" + url + "\"}";
            string shortUrl = url;
            HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?key=" + key);
            try
            {
                request.ServicePoint.Expect100Continue = false;
                request.Method = "POST";
                request.ContentLength = post.Length;
                request.ContentType = "application/json";
                request.Headers.Add("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
                using (Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream())
                {
                    byte[] postBuffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(post);
                    requestStream.Write(postBuffer, 0, postBuffer.Length);
                }
                using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
                {
                    using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
                    {
                        using (StreamReader responseReader = new StreamReader(responseStream))
                        {
                            string json = responseReader.ReadToEnd();
                            finalURL = Regex.Match(json, @"""id"": ?""(?.+)""").Groups["id"].Value;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // if Google's URL Shortener is down...
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.StackTrace);
            }
            return finalURL;
}