System.Net.Http.WebRequest works as a Microsoft.NETCore.App but not as a NETStandard.Library

[jeffschwMSFT]

The following code snippet and project.json combo restore, build and run:

program.cs
...
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);

project.json
{
"version": "1.0.0-*",
"compilationOptions": {
"emitEntryPoint": true
},
"dependencies": {
"Microsoft.NETCore.App": {
"type": "platform",
"version": "1.0.0-rc2-3002394"
}
},
"frameworks": {
"netcoreapp1.0": {}
}
}

Using the same code and creating a library does not
http.tar.gz
build (note the original library code did not have an entry point, but this was just for simplicity).

project.json
{
"version": "1.0.0-*",
"compilationOptions": {
"emitEntryPoint": true
},
"dependencies": {
"NETStandard.Library" : "1.5.0-rc2-23931"
},
"frameworks": {
"netstandard1.5": {}
}
}

/Users/xyz/Documents/Projects/bug/http/Program.cs(17,9): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'HttpWebRequest' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
/Users/xyz/Documents/Projects/bug/http/Program.cs(17,50): error CS0103: The name 'WebRequest' does not exist in the current context
/Users/xyz/Documents/Projects/bug/http/Program.cs(17,35): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'HttpWebRequest' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
/Users/xyz/Documents/Projects/bug/http/Program.cs(21,20): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'HttpWebResponse' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
/Users/xyz/Documents/Projects/bug/http/Program.cs(21,48): error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'HttpWebResponse' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

dotnet --info
.NET Command Line Tools (1.0.0-rc2-002394)

Product Information:
Version: 1.0.0-rc2-002394
Commit Sha: 3a423b1080

Runtime Environment:
OS Name: Mac OS X
OS Version: 10.11
OS Platform: Darwin
RID: osx.10.11-x64

[davidsh]

System.Net.HttpWebRequest is part of the System.Net.Requests contract.

The System.Net.Requests contract is NOT part of the NETStandard.Library meta-package. If you want to use this API, you will need to add an explicit reference to System.Net.Requests contract library.

We recommend you move to the newer System.Net.Http API surface which includes HttpClient. This contract/library is part of NETStandard.Library.

In general, for better app performance and features, we recommend developers move away from HttpWebRequest and adopt HttpClient API surface.

[jeffschwMSFT]

Thanks @davidsh , from a discoverability standpoint how are people recommended to diagnosis this issue?

[davidsh]

@ericstj or @weshaggard or @stephentoub would be better able to answer those kind of general CoreFx questions.

[weshaggard]

This isn't any different then someone trying to use any API outside of NETStandard.Library, which isn't great you just have to know what references to add. I believe we are working on adding some VS support for finding packages for some APIs and updating references, @Petermarcu might know more.

[ericstj]

We have different meta packages with different content. Nowhere do we doc that they should be the same nor does common convention imply that two packages with different names should have the same content.
I think the general problem is being tracked by https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/4343.