Get a web page programatically from Android

by ricardoz on Nov.18, 2009, under Android, Tips

The Google folks were kind enough to include a version of the Apache HTTP Client in the Android SDK, ergo loading a web resource/page from our Android apps is really simple:

HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpContext localContext = new BasicHttpContext();
HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet("http://www.spartanjava.com");
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpGet, localContext);
String result = "";
 
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
    new InputStreamReader(
      response.getEntity().getContent()
    )
  );
 
String line = null;
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null){
  result += line + "\n";
}
 
// Now you have the whole HTML loaded on the result variable

:Android, apache, google, http client

8 Comments for this entry

Rizwan
November 10th, 2010 on 6:43 am
Regarding the above code, do we need to import some parent object before compiling it. Can you give reference to the jar file for Appache services.
Zorcec
May 3rd, 2011 on 4:06 am
Maybe that will help:

import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.protocol.BasicHttpContext;
import org.apache.http.protocol.HttpContext;
AndrEa
June 8th, 2011 on 8:13 am
Hi,
the httpClient.execute method generates the following exception:
UnknownHostException: http://www.spartanjava.com

I set the android.permission.INTERNET to the user, this is surely needed even if not mentioned but it didn’t solve the problem.

I tryed both using my real HW (HTC WildFire) and the AVD (with several configuration).

Any suggestions about how to handle this exception and how to set the android environment ?

Many thk in adv to whoever will spend some time for a reply.
Mick
July 17th, 2011 on 9:40 am
@andrea
Try adding the following in your manifest file:
ricardoz
July 17th, 2011 on 11:01 am
@mick
I think you forgot the juicy part :)
Iago
July 31st, 2011 on 9:53 am
why doesn’t it work??

well, basically you have to add INTERNET permission in the manifest.
thanks
October 5th, 2011 on 8:59 am
thanks for the code.
oo
January 28th, 2012 on 11:45 am
Depending what You want to achieve, much simpler would be using BasicResponseHandler():
…
String response = client.execute(request, new BasicResponseHandler());

have fun!