Java HTTP utility class to send GET/POST request

This post help you code a Java utility class that makes a connection to a HTTP server by sending a GET/POST request and receiving response from the server. The HttpUtility class is built upon the HttpURLConnection class under java.net package, and has two methods for sending a request to a remote server:

• •  sendGetRequest(requestURL):accepts only the URL string.
  •  sendPostRequest(requestURL, params): accepts a URL string and a  HashMap containing POST parameters.

Both methods return an HttpURLConnection  object which has been made with the remote server. So we can use this object to invoke methods of the HttpURLConnection class when needed, such as checking HTTP status code, or HTTP response message.

The class also provides two methods for reading the server's response:

• •  readSingleLineRespone():returns a String.
  •  readMultipleLinesRespone(): returns an array of Strings.

As the names suggest, the first method is suitable if the server returns a simple response such as a String; and the second one is suitable if the server returns something bigger.

Finally, there is a method to close the connection with the server:

• • disconnect()

Here is the source code of this utility class:

package net.codejava.networking;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLEncoder;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 * This class encapsulates methods for requesting a server via HTTP GET/POST and
 * provides methods for parsing response from the server.
 * 
 * @author www.codejava.net
 * 
 */
public class HttpUtility {

	/**
	 * Represents an HTTP connection
	 */
	private static HttpURLConnection httpConn;

	/**
	 * Makes an HTTP request using GET method to the specified URL.
	 * 
	 * @param requestURL
	 *            the URL of the remote server
	 * @return An HttpURLConnection object
	 * @throws IOException
	 *             thrown if any I/O error occurred
	 */
	public static HttpURLConnection sendGetRequest(String requestURL)
			throws IOException {
		URL url = new URL(requestURL);
		httpConn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
		httpConn.setUseCaches(false);

		httpConn.setDoInput(true); // true if we want to read server's response
		httpConn.setDoOutput(false); // false indicates this is a GET request

		return httpConn;
	}

	/**
	 * Makes an HTTP request using POST method to the specified URL.
	 * 
	 * @param requestURL
	 *            the URL of the remote server
	 * @param params
	 *            A map containing POST data in form of key-value pairs
	 * @return An HttpURLConnection object
	 * @throws IOException
	 *             thrown if any I/O error occurred
	 */
	public static HttpURLConnection sendPostRequest(String requestURL,
			Map<String, String> params) throws IOException {
		URL url = new URL(requestURL);
		httpConn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
		httpConn.setUseCaches(false);

		httpConn.setDoInput(true); // true indicates the server returns response

		StringBuffer requestParams = new StringBuffer();

		if (params != null && params.size() > 0) {

			httpConn.setDoOutput(true); // true indicates POST request

			// creates the params string, encode them using URLEncoder
			Iterator<String> paramIterator = params.keySet().iterator();
			while (paramIterator.hasNext()) {
				String key = paramIterator.next();
				String value = params.get(key);
				requestParams.append(URLEncoder.encode(key, "UTF-8"));
				requestParams.append("=").append(
						URLEncoder.encode(value, "UTF-8"));
				requestParams.append("&");
			}

			// sends POST data
			OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(
					httpConn.getOutputStream());
			writer.write(requestParams.toString());
			writer.flush();
		}

		return httpConn;
	}

	/**
	 * Returns only one line from the server's response. This method should be
	 * used if the server returns only a single line of String.
	 * 
	 * @return a String of the server's response
	 * @throws IOException
	 *             thrown if any I/O error occurred
	 */
	public static String readSingleLineRespone() throws IOException {
		InputStream inputStream = null;
		if (httpConn != null) {
			inputStream = httpConn.getInputStream();
		} else {
			throw new IOException("Connection is not established.");
		}
		BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
				inputStream));

		String response = reader.readLine();
		reader.close();

		return response;
	}

	/**
	 * Returns an array of lines from the server's response. This method should
	 * be used if the server returns multiple lines of String.
	 * 
	 * @return an array of Strings of the server's response
	 * @throws IOException
	 *             thrown if any I/O error occurred
	 */
	public static String[] readMultipleLinesRespone() throws IOException {
		InputStream inputStream = null;
		if (httpConn != null) {
			inputStream = httpConn.getInputStream();
		} else {
			throw new IOException("Connection is not established.");
		}

		BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
				inputStream));
		List<String> response = new ArrayList<String>();

		String line = "";
		while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
			response.add(line);
		}
		reader.close();

		return (String[]) response.toArray(new String[0]);
	}
	
	/**
	 * Closes the connection if opened
	 */
	public static void disconnect() {
		if (httpConn != null) {
			httpConn.disconnect();
		}
	}
}

The following test program demonstrates how to use the utility class:

package net.codejava.networking;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class HttpUtilityTester {

	/**
	 * This program uses the HttpUtility class to send a GET request to
	 * Google home page; and send a POST request to Gmail login page.
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		// test sending GET request
		String requestURL = "http://www.google.com";
		try {
			HttpUtility.sendGetRequest(requestURL);
			String[] response = HttpUtility.readMultipleLinesRespone();
			for (String line : response) {
				System.out.println(line);
			}
		} catch (IOException ex) {
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}
		HttpUtility.disconnect();
		
		
		System.out.println("=====================================");
		
		// test sending POST request
		Map<String, String> params = new HashMap<String, String>();
		requestURL = "https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLoginAuth";
		params.put("Email", "your_email");
		params.put("Passwd", "your_password");
		
		try {
			HttpUtility.sendPostRequest(requestURL, params);
			String[] response = HttpUtility.readMultipleLinesRespone();
			for (String line : response) {
				System.out.println(line);
			}
		} catch (IOException ex) {
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}
		HttpUtility.disconnect();
	}
}

Other Java network tutorials:

• How to use Java URLConnection and HttpURLConnection
• Java URLConnection and HttpURLConnection Examples
• How to use HttpURLConnection to download file from web server
• How to upload files by sending multipart request programmatically
• Java Socket Client Examples (TCP/IP)
• Java Socket Server Examples (TCP/IP)
• How to Create a Chat Console Application in Java using Socket

About the Author:

Nam Ha Minh is certified Java programmer (SCJP and SCWCD). He started programming with Java in the time of Java 1.4 and has been falling in love with Java since then. Make friend with him on Facebook and watch his Java videos you YouTube.

Attachments:

HttpUtility.java

[Java source code]

4 kB