c# - WWW/UnityWebRequest POST/GET request won't return the latest data from server/url

Question

I am creating a HoloLens app using Unity which has to take data from a REST API and display it. I am currently using WWW datatype to get the data and yield return statement in a coroutine that will be called from the Update() function. When I try to run the code, I get the latest data from the API but when someone pushes any new data onto the API, it does not automatically get the latest data in real time and I have to restart the app to see the latest data. My Code:

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.UI;
using System.Collections;
using System;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;

public class TextChange : MonoBehaviour {

    // Use this for initialization
    WWW get;
    public static string getreq;
    Text text;
    bool continueRequest = false;

    void Start()
    {
        StartCoroutine(WaitForRequest());
        text = GetComponent<Text>();
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {

    }

    private IEnumerator WaitForRequest()
    {
        if (continueRequest)
            yield break;

        continueRequest = true;

        float requestFrequencyInSec = 5f; //Update after every 5 seconds 
        WaitForSeconds waitTime = new WaitForSeconds(requestFrequencyInSec);

        while (continueRequest)
        {
            string url = "API Link goes Here";
            WWW get = new WWW(url);
            yield return get;
            getreq = get.text;
            //check for errors
            if (get.error == null)
            {
                string json = @getreq;
                List<MyJSC> data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<MyJSC>>(json);
                int l = data.Count;
                text.text = "Data: " + data[l - 1].content;
            }
            else
            {
                Debug.Log("Error!-> " + get.error);
            }

            yield return waitTime; //Wait for requestFrequencyInSec time
        }
    }

    void stopRequest()
    {
        continueRequest = false;
    }
}

public class MyJSC
{
    public string _id;
    public string author;
    public string content;
    public string _v;
    public string date;
}

Answer 1

This is happening because resources caching is enabled on the Server.

Three possible solutions I know about:

1.Disable resources caching on the server. Instructions are different for every web server. Usually done in .htaccess.

2.Make each request with unique timestamp. The time should in Unix format.

This method will not work on iOS. You are fine since this is for HoloLens.

For example, if your url is http://url.com/file.rar, append ?t=currentTime at the end. currentTime is the actual time in Unix Format.

Full example url: http://url.com/file.rar?t=1468475141

Code:

string getUTCTime()
{
    System.Int32 unixTimestamp = (System.Int32)(System.DateTime.UtcNow.Subtract(new System.DateTime(1970, 1, 1))).TotalSeconds;
    return unixTimestamp.ToString();
}

private IEnumerator WaitForRequest()
{
    string url = "API Link goes Here" + "?t=" + getUTCTime();
    WWW get = new WWW(url);
    yield return get;
    getreq = get.text;
    //check for errors
    if (get.error == null)
    {
        string json = @getreq;
        List<MyJSC> data = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<MyJSC>>(json);
        int l = data.Count;
        text.text = "Data: " + data[l - 1].content;
    }
    else
    {
        Debug.Log("Error!-> " + get.error);
    }
}

3.Disable Cache on the client side by supplying and modifying the Cache-Control and Pragma headers in the request.

Set Cache-Control header to max-age=0, no-cache, no-store then set Pragma header to no-cache.

I suggest you do this with UnityWebRequest instead of the WWW class. First, Include using UnityEngine.Networking;.

Code:

IEnumerator WaitForRequest(string url)
{

    UnityWebRequest www = UnityWebRequest.Get(url);
    www.SetRequestHeader("Cache-Control", "max-age=0, no-cache, no-store");
    www.SetRequestHeader("Pragma", "no-cache");

    yield return www.Send();
    if (www.isError)
    {
        Debug.Log(www.error);
    }
    else
    {
        Debug.Log("Received " + www.downloadHandler.text);
    }
}