Im using ktor client to call this API which needs basic authorization. My application has credential...

# ktor

[Lucas]

Im using ktor client to call this API which needs basic authorization.
My application has credentials for several users of this API, and i need to change the auth header for each different user.
Initially i thought about using the same HttpClient and change the header on each request, but i didnt find a way to do so (using the basic auth plugin).
Should i be using different clients for each user? I feel like this could be expensive and if i could reuse the clients it would be much better. Or should i just be setting the header manually on each request, and stop using the basic auth plugin?

[Aleksei Tirman [JB]]

I suggest sending the Authorization header manually. Here is an example:

suspend fun main() {
    val client = HttpClient(Apache) {}

    val r = client.get("<https://httpbin.org/basic-auth/john/123>") {
        header(HttpHeaders.Authorization, basicAuthHeader("john", "123"))
    }

    println(r.bodyAsText())
}

fun basicAuthHeader(name: String, password: String): String {
    val authString = "$name:$password"
    val authBuf = authString.toByteArray(Charsets.UTF_8).encodeBase64()

    return "Basic $authBuf"
}

[hfhbd]

or use `basicAuth`: https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/blob/261ce16861a2ff5e408d94accc19262bcbdeefa4/ktor-client/ktor-client-core/common/src/io/ktor/client/request/utils.kt#L86

[Lucas]

But i definitely should be reusing the client then, correct?

[hfhbd]

you don't have to, but yeah I would reuse it