HttpURLConnection

Syntax#

abstract void disconnect()
abstract boolean usingProxy()
static boolean getFollowRedirects()
static void setFollowRedirects(boolean set)
String getHeaderField(int n)
String getHeaderFieldKey(int n)
String getRequestMethod()
String getResponseMessage()
int getResponseCode()
long getHeaderFieldDate(String name, long Default)
boolean getInstanceFollowRedirects()
Permission getPermission()
InputStream getErrorStream()
void setChunkedStreamingMode(int chunklen)
void setFixedLengthStreamingMode(int contentLength)
void setFixedLengthStreamingMode(long contentLength)
void setInstanceFollowRedirects(boolean followRedirects)
void setRequestMethod(String method)

Remarks#

HttpURLConnection is the standard HTTP client for Android, used to send and receive data over the web. It is a concrete implementation of URLConnection for HTTP (RFC 2616).

Creating an HttpURLConnection

In order to create a new Android HTTP Client HttpURLConnection, call openConnection() on a URL instance. Since openConnection() returns a URLConnection, you need to explicitly cast the returned value.

URL url = new URL("https://example.com");
HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
// do something with the connection

If you are creating a new URL, you also have to handle the exceptions associated with URL parsing.

try {
    URL url = new URL("https://example.com");
    HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
    // do something with the connection
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Once the response body has been read and the connection is no longer required, the connection should be closed by calling disconnect().

Here is an example:

URL url = new URL("https://example.com");
HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
try {
    // do something with the connection
} finally {
    connection.disconnect();
}

Sending an HTTP GET request

URL url = new URL("https://example.com");
HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

try {
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));

    // read the input stream
    // in this case, I simply read the first line of the stream
    String line = br.readLine();
    Log.d("HTTP-GET", line);

} finally {
    connection.disconnect();
}

Please note that exceptions are not handled in the example above. A full example, including (a trivial) exception handling, would be:

URL url;
HttpURLConnection connection = null;

try {
    url = new URL("https://example.com");
    connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));

    // read the input stream
    // in this case, I simply read the first line of the stream
    String line = br.readLine();
    Log.d("HTTP-GET", line);

} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
    if (connection != null) {
        connection.disconnect();
    }
}

Reading the body of an HTTP GET request

URL url = new URL("https://example.com");
HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

try {
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));

    // use a string builder to bufferize the response body
    // read from the input strea.
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    String line;
    while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
        sb.append(line).append('\n');
    }

    // use the string builder directly,
    // or convert it into a String
    String body = sb.toString();

    Log.d("HTTP-GET", body);

} finally {
    connection.disconnect();
}

Please note that exceptions are not handled in the example above.

Use HttpURLConnection for multipart/form-data

Create custom class for calling multipart/form-data HttpURLConnection request

MultipartUtility.java

public class MultipartUtility {
        private final String boundary;
        private static final String LINE_FEED = "\r\n";
        private HttpURLConnection httpConn;
        private String charset;
        private OutputStream outputStream;
        private PrintWriter writer;
    
        /**
         * This constructor initializes a new HTTP POST request with content type
         * is set to multipart/form-data
         *
         * @param requestURL
         * @param charset
         * @throws IOException
         */
        public MultipartUtility(String requestURL, String charset)
                throws IOException {
            this.charset = charset;
    
            // creates a unique boundary based on time stamp
            boundary = "===" + System.currentTimeMillis() + "===";
            URL url = new URL(requestURL);
            httpConn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            httpConn.setUseCaches(false);
            httpConn.setDoOutput(true);    // indicates POST method
            httpConn.setDoInput(true);
            httpConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type",
                    "multipart/form-data; boundary=" + boundary);
            outputStream = httpConn.getOutputStream();
            writer = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(outputStream, charset),
                    true);
        }
    
        /**
         * Adds a form field to the request
         *
         * @param name  field name
         * @param value field value
         */
        public void addFormField(String name, String value) {
            writer.append("--" + boundary).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + name + "\"")
                    .append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append("Content-Type: text/plain; charset=" + charset).append(
                    LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(value).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();
        }
    
        /**
         * Adds a upload file section to the request
         *
         * @param fieldName  name attribute in <input type="file" name="..." />
         * @param uploadFile a File to be uploaded
         * @throws IOException
         */
        public void addFilePart(String fieldName, File uploadFile)
                throws IOException {
            String fileName = uploadFile.getName();
            writer.append("--" + boundary).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(
                    "Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + fieldName
                            + "\"; filename=\"" + fileName + "\"")
                    .append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(
                    "Content-Type: "
                            + URLConnection.guessContentTypeFromName(fileName))
                    .append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary").append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();
    
            FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(uploadFile);
            byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
            int bytesRead = -1;
            while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
            }
            outputStream.flush();
            inputStream.close();
            writer.append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();
        }
    
        /**
         * Adds a header field to the request.
         *
         * @param name  - name of the header field
         * @param value - value of the header field
         */
        public void addHeaderField(String name, String value) {
            writer.append(name + ": " + value).append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.flush();
        }
    
        /**
         * Completes the request and receives response from the server.
         *
         * @return a list of Strings as response in case the server returned
         * status OK, otherwise an exception is thrown.
         * @throws IOException
         */
        public List<String> finish() throws IOException {
            List<String> response = new ArrayList<String>();
            writer.append(LINE_FEED).flush();
            writer.append("--" + boundary + "--").append(LINE_FEED);
            writer.close();
    
            // checks server's status code first
            int status = httpConn.getResponseCode();
            if (status == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
                BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                        httpConn.getInputStream()));
                String line = null;
                while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                    response.add(line);
                }
                reader.close();
                httpConn.disconnect();
            } else {
                throw new IOException("Server returned non-OK status: " + status);
            }
            return response;
        }
    }

Use it (Async way)

    MultipartUtility multipart = new MultipartUtility(requestURL, charset);

    // In your case you are not adding form data so ignore this
                /*This is to add parameter values */
                for (int i = 0; i < myFormDataArray.size(); i++) {
                    multipart.addFormField(myFormDataArray.get(i).getParamName(),
                            myFormDataArray.get(i).getParamValue());
                }


//add your file here.
                /*This is to add file content*/
                for (int i = 0; i < myFileArray.size(); i++) {
                    multipart.addFilePart(myFileArray.getParamName(),
                            new File(myFileArray.getFileName()));
                }

                List<String> response = multipart.finish();
                Debug.e(TAG, "SERVER REPLIED:");
                for (String line : response) {
                    Debug.e(TAG, "Upload Files Response:::" + line);
// get your server response here.
                    responseString = line;
                }

Sending an HTTP POST request with parameters

Use a HashMap to store the parameters that should be sent to the server through POST parameters:

HashMap<String, String> params;

Once the params HashMap is populated, create the StringBuilder that will be used to send them to the server:

    StringBuilder sbParams = new StringBuilder();
    int i = 0;
    for (String key : params.keySet()) {
        try {
            if (i != 0){
                sbParams.append("&");
            }
            sbParams.append(key).append("=")
                    .append(URLEncoder.encode(params.get(key), "UTF-8"));

        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        i++;
    }

Then, create the HttpURLConnection, open the connection, and send the POST parameters:

try{
    String url = "https://www.example.com/test.php";
    URL urlObj = new URL(url);
    HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) urlObj.openConnection();
    conn.setDoOutput(true);
    conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
    conn.setRequestProperty("Accept-Charset", "UTF-8");
    
    conn.setReadTimeout(10000);
    conn.setConnectTimeout(15000);
    
    conn.connect();
    
    String paramsString = sbParams.toString();
    
    DataOutputStream wr = new DataOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream());
    wr.writeBytes(paramsString);
    wr.flush();
    wr.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Then receive the result that the server sends back:

try {
  InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(conn.getInputStream());
  BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
  StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
  String line;
  while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
    result.append(line);
  }

  Log.d("test", "result from server: " + result.toString());

} catch (IOException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
    if (conn != null) {
        conn.disconnect();
    }
}

Upload (POST) file using HttpURLConnection

Quite often it’s necessary to send/upload a file to a remote server, for example, an image, video, audio or a backup of the application database to a remote private server. Assuming the server is expecting a POST request with the content, here’s a simple example of how to complete this task in Android.

File uploads are sent using multipart/form-data POST requests. It’s very easy to implement:

URL url = new URL(postTarget);
HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

String auth = "Bearer " + oauthToken;
connection.setRequestProperty("Authorization", basicAuth);

String boundary = UUID.randomUUID().toString();
connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
connection.setDoOutput(true);
connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "multipart/form-data;boundary=" + boundary);

DataOutputStream request = new DataOutputStream(uc.getOutputStream());

request.writeBytes("--" + boundary + "\r\n");
request.writeBytes("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"description\"\r\n\r\n");
request.writeBytes(fileDescription + "\r\n");

request.writeBytes("--" + boundary + "\r\n");
request.writeBytes("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file\"; filename=\"" + file.fileName + "\"\r\n\r\n");
request.write(FileUtils.readFileToByteArray(file));
request.writeBytes("\r\n");

request.writeBytes("--" + boundary + "--\r\n");
request.flush();
int respCode = connection.getResponseCode();

switch(respCode) {
    case 200:
        //all went ok - read response
        ...
        break;
    case 301:
    case 302:
    case 307:
        //handle redirect - for example, re-post to the new location
        ...
        break;
    ...
    default:
        //do something sensible
}

Of course, exceptions will need to be caught or declared as being thrown. A couple points to note about this code:

postTarget is the destination URL of the POST; oauthToken is the authentication token; fileDescription is the description of the file, which is sent as the value of field description; file is the file to be sent - it’s of type java.io.File - if you have the file path, you can use new File(filePath) instead.
It sets Authorization header for an oAuth auth
It uses Apache Common FileUtil to read the file into a byte array - if you already have the content of the file in a byte array or in some other way in memory, then there’s no need to read it.

A multi-purpose HttpURLConnection class to handle all types of HTTP requests

The following class can be used as a single class that can handle GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and other requests:

class APIResponseObject{
    int responseCode;
    String response;

    APIResponseObject(int responseCode,String response)
    {
         this.responseCode = responseCode;
         this.response = response;
    }
}

public class APIAccessTask extends AsyncTask<String,Void,APIResponseObject> {
    URL requestUrl;
    Context context;
    HttpURLConnection urlConnection;
    List<Pair<String,String>> postData, headerData;
    String method;
    int responseCode = HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK;

    interface OnCompleteListener{
        void onComplete(APIResponseObject result);
    }

    public OnCompleteListener delegate = null;

    APIAccessTask(Context context, String requestUrl, String method, OnCompleteListener delegate){
        this.context = context;
        this.delegate = delegate;
        this.method = method;
        try {
            this.requestUrl = new URL(requestUrl);
        }
        catch(Exception ex){
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    APIAccessTask(Context context, String requestUrl, String method, List<Pair<String,String>> postData, OnCompleteListener delegate){
        this(context, requestUrl, method, delegate);
        this.postData = postData;
    }

    APIAccessTask(Context context, String requestUrl, String method, List<Pair<String,String>> postData,
            List<Pair<String,String>> headerData, OnCompleteListener delegate ){
        this(context, requestUrl,method,postData,delegate);
        this.headerData = headerData;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPreExecute() {
        super.onPreExecute();
    }

    @Override
    protected APIResponseObject doInBackground(String... params) {
        Log.d("debug", "url = "+ requestUrl);
        try {
            urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) requestUrl.openConnection();

            if(headerData != null) {
                for (Pair pair : headerData) {
                    urlConnection.setRequestProperty(pair.first.toString(),pair.second.toString());
                }
            }

            urlConnection.setDoInput(true);
            urlConnection.setChunkedStreamingMode(0);
            urlConnection.setRequestMethod(method);
            urlConnection.connect();

            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

            if(!(method.equals("GET"))) {
                OutputStream out = new BufferedOutputStream(urlConnection.getOutputStream());
                BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(out, "UTF-8"));
                writer.write(getPostDataString(postData));
                writer.flush();
                writer.close();
                out.close();
            }

            urlConnection.connect();
            responseCode = urlConnection.getResponseCode();
            if (responseCode == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
                InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(urlConnection.getInputStream());
                BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in, "UTF-8"));
                String line;

                while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
                    sb.append(line);
                }
            }

            return new APIResponseObject(responseCode, sb.toString());
        }
        catch(Exception ex){
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(APIResponseObject result) {
        delegate.onComplete(result);
        super.onPostExecute(result);
    }

    private String getPostDataString(List<Pair<String, String>> params) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
        StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
        boolean first = true;
        for(Pair<String,String> pair : params){
            if (first)
                first = false;
            else
                result.append("&");

            result.append(URLEncoder.encode(pair.first,"UTF-8"));
            result.append("=");
            result.append(URLEncoder.encode(pair.second, "UTF-8"));
        }
        return result.toString();
    }
}

Usage

Use any of the given constructors of the class depending on whether you need to send POST data or any extra headers.

The onComplete() method will be called when the data fetching is complete. The data is returned as an object of the APIResponseObject class, which has a status code stating the HTTP status code of the request and a string containing the response. You can parse this response in your class, i.e. XML or JSON.

Call execute() on the object of the class to execute the request, as shown in the following example:

class MainClass {
    String url = "https://example.com./api/v1/ex";
    String method = "POST";    
    List<Pair<String,String>> postData = new ArrayList<>();

    postData.add(new Pair<>("email","whatever");
    postData.add(new Pair<>("password", "whatever");

    new APIAccessTask(MainActivity.this, url, method, postData,
            new APIAccessTask.OnCompleteListener() {
        @Override
        public void onComplete(APIResponseObject result) {
            if (result.responseCode == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
                String str = result.response;
                // Do your XML/JSON parsing here
            }
        }
    }).execute();
}