Java - sending HTTP parameters via POST method eas

Question

I am successfully using this code to send HTTP requests with some parameters via GET method

void sendRequest(String request)
{
    // i.e.: request = "http://example.com/index.php?param1=a&param2=b&param3=c";
    URL url = new URL(request); 
    HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();           
    connection.setDoOutput(true); 
    connection.setInstanceFollowRedirects(false); 
    connection.setRequestMethod("GET"); 
    connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "text/plain"); 
    connection.setRequestProperty("charset", "utf-8");
    connection.connect();
}

Now I may need to send the parameters (i.e. param1, param2, param3) via POST method because they are very long. I was thinking to add an extra parameter to that method (i.e. String httpMethod).

How can I change the code above as little as possible to be able to send paramters either via GET or POST?

I was hoping that changing

connection.setRequestMethod("GET");

to

connection.setRequestMethod("POST");

would have done the trick, but the parameters are still sent via GET method.

Has HttpURLConnection got any method that would help? Is there any helpful Java construct?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

I had the same issue. I wanted to send data via POST. I used the following code:

    URL url = new URL("http://example.com/getval.php");
    Map<String,Object> params = new LinkedHashMap<>();
    params.put("param1", param1);
    params.put("param2", param2);

    StringBuilder postData = new StringBuilder();
    for (Map.Entry<String,Object> param : params.entrySet()) {
        if (postData.length() != 0) postData.append('&');
        postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(param.getKey(), "UTF-8"));
        postData.append('=');
        postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(String.valueOf(param.getValue()), "UTF-8"));
    }
    String urlParameters = postData.toString();
    URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();

    conn.setDoOutput(true);

    OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(conn.getOutputStream());

    writer.write(urlParameters);
    writer.flush();

    String result = "";
    String line;
    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));

    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
        result += line;
    }
    writer.close();
    reader.close()
    System.out.println(result);

I used Jsoup for parse:

    Document doc = Jsoup.parseBodyFragment(value);
    Iterator<Element> opts = doc.select("option").iterator();
    for (;opts.hasNext();) {
        Element item = opts.next();
        if (item.hasAttr("value")) {
            System.out.println(item.attr("value"));
        }
    }

Answer 2

i have read above answers and have created a utility class to simplify HTTP request. i hope it will help you.

Method Call

  // send params with Hash Map
    HashMap<String, String> params = new HashMap<String, String>();
    params.put("email","[e-mail]");
    params.put("password","12345");

    //server url
    String url = "http://www.example.com";

    // static class "HttpUtility" with static method "newRequest(url,method,callback)"
    HttpUtility.newRequest(url,HttpUtility.METHOD_POST,params, new HttpUtility.Callback() {
        @Override
        public void OnSuccess(String response) {
        // on success
           System.out.println("Server OnSuccess response="+response);
        }
        @Override
        public void OnError(int status_code, String message) {
        // on error
              System.out.println("Server OnError status_code="+status_code+" message="+message);
        }
    });

Utility Class

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import static java.net.HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK;

public class HttpUtility {

 public static final int METHOD_GET = 0; // METHOD GET
 public static final int METHOD_POST = 1; // METHOD POST

 // Callback interface
 public interface Callback {
  // abstract methods
  public void OnSuccess(String response);
  public void OnError(int status_code, String message);
 }
 // static method
 public static void newRequest(String web_url, int method, HashMap < String, String > params, Callback callback) {

  // thread for handling async task
  new Thread(new Runnable() {
   @Override
   public void run() {
    try {
     String url = web_url;
     // write GET params,append with url
     if (method == METHOD_GET && params != null) {
      for (Map.Entry < String, String > item: params.entrySet()) {
       String key = URLEncoder.encode(item.getKey(), "UTF-8");
       String value = URLEncoder.encode(item.getValue(), "UTF-8");
       if (!url.contains("?")) {
        url += "?" + key + "=" + value;
       } else {
        url += "&" + key + "=" + value;
       }
      }
     }

     HttpURLConnection urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) new URL(url).openConnection();
     urlConnection.setDoOutput(true); // write POST params
     urlConnection.setUseCaches(false);
     urlConnection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); // handle url encoded form data
     urlConnection.setRequestProperty("charset", "utf-8");
     if (method == METHOD_GET) {
      urlConnection.setRequestMethod("GET");
     } else if (method == METHOD_POST) {
      urlConnection.setRequestMethod("POST");
     }

     //write POST data 
     if (method == METHOD_POST && params != null) {
      StringBuilder postData = new StringBuilder();
      for (Map.Entry < String, String > item: params.entrySet()) {
       if (postData.length() != 0) postData.append('&');
       postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(item.getKey(), "UTF-8"));
       postData.append('=');
       postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(String.valueOf(item.getValue()), "UTF-8"));
      }
      byte[] postDataBytes = postData.toString().getBytes("UTF-8");
      urlConnection.setRequestProperty("Content-Length", String.valueOf(postDataBytes.length));
      urlConnection.getOutputStream().write(postDataBytes);

     }
     // server response code
     int responseCode = urlConnection.getResponseCode();
     if (responseCode == HTTP_OK && callback != null) {
      BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(urlConnection.getInputStream()));
      StringBuilder response = new StringBuilder();
      String line;
      while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
       response.append(line);
      }
      // callback success
      callback.OnSuccess(response.toString());
      reader.close(); // close BufferReader
     } else if (callback != null) {
      // callback error
      callback.OnError(responseCode, urlConnection.getResponseMessage());
     }

     urlConnection.disconnect(); // disconnect connection
    } catch (IOException e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
     if (callback != null) {
      // callback error
      callback.OnError(500, e.getLocalizedMessage());
     }
    }
   }
  }).start(); // start thread
 }
}

Answer 3

Try this pattern:

public static PricesResponse getResponse(EventRequestRaw request) {

    // String urlParameters  = "param1=a&param2=b&param3=c";
    String urlParameters = Piping.serialize(request);

    HttpURLConnection conn = RestClient.getPOSTConnection(endPoint, urlParameters);

    PricesResponse response = null;

    try {
        // POST
        OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(conn.getOutputStream());
        writer.write(urlParameters);
        writer.flush();

        // RESPONSE
        BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader((conn.getInputStream()), StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
        String json = Buffering.getString(reader);
        response = (PricesResponse) Piping.deserialize(json, PricesResponse.class);

        writer.close();
        reader.close();

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    conn.disconnect();

    System.out.println("PricesClient: " + response.toString());

    return response;
}

public static HttpURLConnection getPOSTConnection(String endPoint, String urlParameters) {

    return RestClient.getConnection(endPoint, "POST", urlParameters);

}


public static HttpURLConnection getConnection(String endPoint, String method, String urlParameters) {

    System.out.println("ENDPOINT " + endPoint + " METHOD " + method);
    HttpURLConnection conn = null;

    try {
        URL url = new URL(endPoint);
        conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        conn.setRequestMethod(method);
        conn.setDoOutput(true);
        conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "text/plain");

    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return conn;
}

Answer 4

I see some other answers have given the alternative, I personally think that intuitively you're doing the right thing ;). Sorry, at devoxx where several speakers have been ranting about this sort of thing.

That's why I personally use Apache's HTTPClient/HttpCore libraries to do this sort of work, I find their API to be easier to use than Java's native HTTP support. YMMV of course!

Answer 5

I took Boann's answer and used it to create a more flexible query string builder that supports lists and arrays, just like php's http_build_query method:

public static byte[] httpBuildQueryString(Map<String, Object> postsData) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
    StringBuilder postData = new StringBuilder();
    for (Map.Entry<String,Object> param : postsData.entrySet()) {
        if (postData.length() != 0) postData.append('&');

        Object value = param.getValue();
        String key = param.getKey();

        if(value instanceof Object[] || value instanceof List<?>)
        {
            int size = value instanceof Object[] ? ((Object[])value).length : ((List<?>)value).size();
            for(int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                Object val = value instanceof Object[] ? ((Object[])value)[i] : ((List<?>)value).get(i);
                if(i>0) postData.append('&');
                postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(key + "[" + i + "]", "UTF-8"));
                postData.append('=');            
                postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(String.valueOf(val), "UTF-8"));
            }
        }
        else
        {
            postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(key, "UTF-8"));
            postData.append('=');            
            postData.append(URLEncoder.encode(String.valueOf(value), "UTF-8"));
        }
    }
    return postData.toString().getBytes("UTF-8");
}

Answer 6

This answer covers the specific case of the POST Call using a Custom Java POJO.

Using maven dependency for Gson to serialize our Java Object to JSON.

Install Gson using the dependency below.

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
  <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
  <version>2.8.5</version>
  <scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>

For those using gradle can use the below

dependencies {
implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.5'
}

Other imports used:

import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.CloseableHttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.entity.*;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
import com.google.gson.Gson;

Now, we can go ahead and use the HttpPost provided by Apache

private CloseableHttpClient httpclient = HttpClients.createDefault();
HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost("https://example.com");

Product product = new Product(); //custom java object to be posted as Request Body
    Gson gson = new Gson();
    String client = gson.toJson(product);

    httppost.setEntity(new StringEntity(client, ContentType.APPLICATION_JSON));
    httppost.setHeader("RANDOM-HEADER", "headervalue");
    //Execute and get the response.
    HttpResponse response = null;
    try {
        response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        throw new InternalServerErrorException("Post fails");
    }
    Response.Status responseStatus = Response.Status.fromStatusCode(response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode());
    return Response.status(responseStatus).build();

The above code will return with the response code received from the POST Call