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What is the simplest way to retrieve a web page in Java?
Ideally, I want to pass in a URL and get back a String.

wrote:
> What is the simplest way to retrieve a web page in Java?
> Ideally, I want to pass in a URL and get back a String.

Since a URL isn't guaranteed to return text data and you don't know the
encoding head of time, it's not that simple. You can certainly create a
URL and get an InputStream, but to convert to characters, you'll need to
use the Content-Type response header to deduce the encoding.
Unfortunately, that's rather complex so I'll wait for you to say you
need it, and then maybe I or someone else will have time to write it for
you. The basics are:

URL url = new URL("http://something");
InputStream stream = url.openStream();

try
{
// read the data from the stream
}
finally
{
stream.close();
}

or, if you want to convert to text with a given character encoding:

URL url = new URL("http://something");
InputStream stream = url.openStream();

try
{
InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(
stream, "encoding-name");

// read the data from the reader
}
finally
{
stream.close();
}

--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way to Train Anyone... Anywhere.

Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation

On Thu, 27 May 2004 18:03:23 GMT, wrote:

> What is the simplest way to retrieve a web page in Java?
> Ideally, I want to pass in a URL and get back a String.

Isn't it about time you Bob, that you
found the JavaDocs and tutorials, and
headed over to c.l.j.help?

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

In article < >,
enlightened us with...
> What is the simplest way to retrieve a web page in Java?
> Ideally, I want to pass in a URL and get back a String.
>
>

A snippet from code I have that does this very thing...


URL url=null;
String line=null;
InputStream in=null;
BufferedReader input=null;
URLConnection connection=null;
String pageContent="";


url = new URL("http://www.google.com");
connection = url.openConnection();
connection.setDoInput(true);
in = connection.getInputStream();
input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));

while ((line = input.readLine()) != null)
{
// put the whole thing into a string
pageContent += line;
}


--
--
~kaeli~
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully
recovered.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace

On Thu, 27 May 2004 18:03:23 GMT, wrote or
quoted :

>What is the simplest way to retrieve a web page in Java?
>Ideally, I want to pass in a URL and get back a String.

see http://mindprod.com/fileio.html

tell it you want to learn to do a CGI get. This what browsers do to
get webpages.

--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

wrote:
> What is the simplest way to retrieve a web page in Java?
> Ideally, I want to pass in a URL and get back a String.
>

The Jakarta commons HttpClient works great.

http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/httpclient/

-Patrick