java send GET/POST requests while maintaining cookies

Question

I'm using Apache HttpClient 4.2.5 and I'm trying to send GET/POST requests while passing cookies from one request to another (like a real browser would).

HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpGet request = new HttpGet(get_url);

request.setHeader("User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0");
request.setHeader("Accept", "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8");
request.setHeader("Accept-Language", "en-US,en;q=0.5");
request.setHeader("Connection", "keep-alive");

try {
     HttpResponse response = client.execute(request);
     // Get cookies & pass them to a POST request
} catch (IOException e) {
     System.out.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
}

Is there anything that resembles PHP's cURL functionality? cURL is simple and straightforward but it's so hard to find a working piece of code on Google that does what I need in Java.

What I want is very simple. Let me send POST and GET requests. At the same time, pass the cookies and let me set my own headers. Anything like that in Java?

Answer 1

Is there anything that resembles PHP's cURL functionality? cURL is simple and straightforward but it's so hard to find a working piece of code on Google that does what I need in Java

Something from Curl world:

curl -b -L -i  -X POST   
-d 'id=105'  
-d 'json={"orderBy":0,"categoryRelevant":false'}  \ http://env-findwifi.wifi.com/lClient/

**Comment:

-b :: enable cookies (by default its disabled)
-L :: activate redirect
-i :: show output

But if you really want to play with Java here is snippets of code:

List<Cookie> mCookies = null;

...

public void redirect(String url){

    StringBuilder buff = new StringBuilder();

    DefaultHttpClient httpclient = null;
    //      boolean success = false;

    try {           
        Log.d("test_runner","send Data started");


        HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
        int m_timeout = 60000;
        ConnManagerParams.setTimeout(params, m_timeout);            
        HttpConnectionParams.setStaleCheckingEnabled(params, false);
        HttpConnectionParams.setSocketBufferSize(params, 8192);

        HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(params, m_timeout);    // connection timeout
        HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(params, m_timeout);            // socket timeout

        HttpClientParams.setRedirecting(params, false);


        httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(params);


        Log.d("test_runner", "URL: " + url);

        HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(url);




        HttpContext context = new BasicHttpContext(); 
        HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget, context);



        //HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);

        mCookies = httpclient.getCookieStore().getCookies();

        if (mCookies.isEmpty()) {
            Log.d("test_runner", "Cookies: None");
        } else {
            for (int i = 0; i < mCookies.size(); i++) {
                System.out.println("- " + mCookies.get(i).toString());
                Log.d("test_runner", "Cookies: [" + i + "]" + mCookies.get(i).toString());
            }
        }

        int statusCode =  response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
        if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
            Header[] headers = response.getHeaders("Location");

            if (headers != null && headers.length != 0) {
                String newUrl =  headers[headers.length - 1].getValue();

                redirect(newUrl);                   

            } 
        }   
        else{ // status 200

            HttpHost currentHost = (HttpHost)  context.getAttribute(ExecutionContext.HTTP_TARGET_HOST);

            mHost = currentHost.toURI();

            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

            if (entity != null) {


                InputStream is = entity.getContent();
                InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
                BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr, 1024 * 4);
                String line = null;
                while ( (line = br.readLine()) != null) {
                    //System.out.println("Data Sender: " +  line);

                    buff.append(line).append("\n");

                }
                is.close();

            } else {
                Log.d("test_runner", "Data Sender: response is null");
            }

            Log.d("test_runner", "Output: " +  buff);

            // do something


        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        Log.e("test_runner", ThrowableToString.fromThrowableToString(e));
    }

    if (httpclient != null) {           
        httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
    }       

}

After you can use your cookies for post:

    private void doPost(String formAction, String inputRootValue,
        String inputRootName, String onSubmitName, String onSubmitVal) {

    StringBuilder buff = new StringBuilder();

    DefaultHttpClient httpclient = null;

    try {  

    HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
    int m_timeout = 60000;
    ConnManagerParams.setTimeout(params, m_timeout);            
    HttpConnectionParams.setStaleCheckingEnabled(params, false);
    HttpConnectionParams.setSocketBufferSize(params, 8192);



    HttpClientParams.setRedirecting(params, false);


     CookieStore cookieStore = new BasicCookieStore(); 



     for(Cookie cook : mCookies){
         cookieStore.addCookie(cook); 
     }

     httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(params);
     httpclient.setCookieStore(cookieStore);

     if(mHost != null){
         formAction =  mHost + "/www/" + formAction; 
     }
     else{
         formAction =  "http://localhost/www/" + formAction; 
     }




    HttpPost httpost = new HttpPost(formAction);

    List <NameValuePair> nvps = new ArrayList <NameValuePair>();
    nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair(inputRootName, inputRootValue));
    nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair(onSubmitName, onSubmitVal));


    httpost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvps, HTTP.UTF_8));




    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpost);

    HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

    if (entity != null) {

        StatusLine statusLine = response.getStatusLine();
        int statusCode = statusLine.getStatusCode();

        if(statusCode != 200){

        }

        Log.d("test_runner", "response.getStatusLine: " + response.getStatusLine());

        InputStream is = entity.getContent();
        InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(isr);
        String line = null;
        while ( (line = br.readLine()) != null) {
            //System.out.println("Data Sender: " +  line);

            buff.append(line).append("\n");


        }
        is.close();

        //entity.consumeContent();
    } else {

    }

    Log.d("test_runner", "response: " + buff.toString());



} catch (Exception e) {
    Log.e("test_runner", ThrowableToString.fromThrowableToString(e));
}

if (httpclient != null) {
    // resource cleanup
    httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
}


}

Answer 2

HttpClient automatically handles cookies as long as you use the same DefaultHttpClient object.