HTTP get with headers using RestTemplate

Question

How can I send a GET request using the Spring RestTemplate? Other questions have used POST, but I need to use GET. When I run this, the program continues to work, but it seems that the network is clogged because this is in an AsyncTask, and when I try to run another asynctask after I click on the button for this one, they won't work.

I tried doing

        String url = "https://api.blah.com/2.0/search/cubes?w=jdfkl&whitespace=1";

        MultiValueMap<String, String> map = new LinkedMultiValueMap<String, String>();
        map.add("Bearer", accessToken);

        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED); //copied this from somewhere else, not sure what its for

        HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, String>> request = new HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, String>>(map, headers);

        HttpMessageConverter<String> stringConverter = new StringHttpMessageConverter();
        FormHttpMessageConverter formConverter = new FormHttpMessageConverter();
        List<HttpMessageConverter<?>> msgConverters = new ArrayList<HttpMessageConverter<?>>();


        msgConverters.add(formConverter);
        msgConverters.add(new MappingJacksonHttpMessageConverter());
        msgConverters.add(stringConverter); 

        template.setMessageConverters(msgConverters);
        //SetSearchResponseData is my custom class to store the incoming JSON
        ResponseEntity<SetSearchResponseData> result = template.exchange(url, HttpMethod.GET, request, SetSearchResponseData.class);
        //If I was using post, i could have done SetSearchResponseDataresponse = restTemplate.postForObject(url, request, SetSearchResponseData.class);

Answer 1

The RestTemplate getForObject() method does not support setting headers. The solution is to use the exchange() method.

So instead of restTemplate.getForObject(url, String.class, param) (which has no headers), use

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.set("Header", "value");
headers.set("Other-Header", "othervalue");
...

HttpEntity entity = new HttpEntity(headers);

ResponseEntity<String> response = restTemplate.exchange(
    url, HttpMethod.GET, entity, String.class, param);

Finally, use response.getBody() to get your result.

This question is similar to this question.

Answer 2

Take a look at the JavaDoc for RestTemplate.

There is the corresponding getForObject methods that are the HTTP GET equivalents of postForObject, but they doesn't appear to fulfil your requirements of "GET with headers", as there is no way to specify headers on any of the calls.

Looking at the JavaDoc, no method that is HTTP GET specific allows you to also provide header information. There are alternatives though, one of which you have found and are using. The exchange methods allow you to provide an HttpEntity object representing the details of the request (including headers). The execute methods allow you to specify a RequestCallback from which you can add the headers upon its invocation.