How to send HTTP request in java? [duplicate]

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• How to use java.net.URLConnection to fire and handle HTTP requests 11 answers

In Java, How to compose a HTTP request message and send it to a HTTP WebServer?

Answer 1

You can use java.net.HttpUrlConnection.

Example (from here), with improvements. Included in case of link rot:

public static String executePost(String targetURL, String urlParameters) {
  HttpURLConnection connection = null;

  try {
    //Create connection
    URL url = new URL(targetURL);
    connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
    connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
    connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", 
        "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

    connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Length", 
        Integer.toString(urlParameters.getBytes().length));
    connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Language", "en-US");  

    connection.setUseCaches(false);
    connection.setDoOutput(true);

    //Send request
    DataOutputStream wr = new DataOutputStream (
        connection.getOutputStream());
    wr.writeBytes(urlParameters);
    wr.close();

    //Get Response  
    InputStream is = connection.getInputStream();
    BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
    StringBuilder response = new StringBuilder(); // or StringBuffer if Java version 5+
    String line;
    while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
      response.append(line);
      response.append('\r');
    }
    rd.close();
    return response.toString();
  } catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
    return null;
  } finally {
    if (connection != null) {
      connection.disconnect();
    }
  }
}

Answer 2

There's a great link about sending a POST request here by Example Depot::

try {
    // Construct data
    String data = URLEncoder.encode("key1", "UTF-8") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("value1", "UTF-8");
    data += "&" + URLEncoder.encode("key2", "UTF-8") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("value2", "UTF-8");

    // Send data
    URL url = new URL("http://hostname:80/cgi");
    URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
    conn.setDoOutput(true);
    OutputStreamWriter wr = new OutputStreamWriter(conn.getOutputStream());
    wr.write(data);
    wr.flush();

    // Get the response
    BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
    String line;
    while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
        // Process line...
    }
    wr.close();
    rd.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
}

If you want to send a GET request you can modify the code slightly to suit your needs. Specifically you have to add the parameters inside the constructor of the URL. Then, also comment out this wr.write(data);

One thing that's not written and you should beware of, is the timeouts. Especially if you want to use it in WebServices you have to set timeouts, otherwise the above code will wait indefinitely or for a very long time at least and it's something presumably you don't want.

Timeouts are set like this conn.setReadTimeout(2000); the input parameter is in milliseconds

Answer 3

You may use Socket for this like

String host = "www.yourhost.com";
Socket socket = new Socket(host, 80);
String request = "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n";
OutputStream os = socket.getOutputStream();
os.write(request.getBytes());
os.flush();

InputStream is = socket.getInputStream();
int ch;
while( (ch=is.read())!= -1)
    System.out.print((char)ch);
socket.close();    

Answer 4

From Oracle's java tutorial

import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;

public class URLConnectionReader {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        URL yahoo = new URL("http://www.yahoo.com/");
        URLConnection yc = yahoo.openConnection();
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
                                new InputStreamReader(
                                yc.getInputStream()));
        String inputLine;

        while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) 
            System.out.println(inputLine);
        in.close();
    }
}

Answer 5

Google java http client has nice API for http requests. You can easily add JSON support etc. Although for simple request it might be overkill.

import com.google.api.client.http.GenericUrl;
import com.google.api.client.http.HttpRequest;
import com.google.api.client.http.HttpResponse;
import com.google.api.client.http.HttpTransport;
import com.google.api.client.http.javanet.NetHttpTransport;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

public class Network {

    static final HttpTransport HTTP_TRANSPORT = new NetHttpTransport();

    public void getRequest(String reqUrl) throws IOException {
        GenericUrl url = new GenericUrl(reqUrl);
        HttpRequest request = HTTP_TRANSPORT.createRequestFactory().buildGetRequest(url);
        HttpResponse response = request.execute();
        System.out.println(response.getStatusCode());

        InputStream is = response.getContent();
        int ch;
        while ((ch = is.read()) != -1) {
            System.out.print((char) ch);
        }
        response.disconnect();
    }
}

Answer 6

Apache HttpComponents. The examples for the two modules - HttpCore and HttpClient will get you started right away.

Not that HttpUrlConnection is a bad choice, HttpComponents will abstract a lot of the tedious coding away. I would recommend this, if you really want to support a lot of HTTP servers/clients with minimum code. By the way, HttpCore could be used for applications (clients or servers) with minimum functionality, whereas HttpClient is to be used for clients that require support for multiple authentication schemes, cookie support etc.