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

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Example

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();
}


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