Send HTTP GET request in Java

This post will discuss how to send HTTP GET request in Java.

1. Using URLConnection/HttpURLConnection

The URLConnection class offers several methods for reading and writing directly to the URL over the network. For HTTP-specific features, consider using its subclass HttpURLConnection.

The following program retrieves an URLConnection object by invoking the openConnection() method on an URL. To get a HttpURLConnection object, simply cast URLConnection instance to a HttpURLConnection. Then get an input stream by calling getInputStream() and create a BufferedReader on the input stream to read from it.

import java.io.BufferedReader;

import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import java.net.URL;

import java.net.URLConnection;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

URL url = new URL("https://reqres.in/api/users?page=1");

URLConnection connection = url.openConnection();

// `HttpURLConnection` connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

// connection.setRequestMethod("GET");

try (BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(

new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream())))

{

String line;

while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {

System.out.println(line);

}

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2. Using Apache `HttpClient` API

If your project is open to external libraries, consider using Apache HttpClient API for executing HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.

Here’s a simple example that demonstrates how we can use HttpClient APIs to send HTTP GET request. We suggest referring to official HttpClient Examples to get an in-depth understanding of all features offered by this module.

import org.apache.http.client.methods.CloseableHttpResponse;

import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpUriRequest;

import org.apache.http.client.methods.RequestBuilder;

import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;

import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClients;

import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;

import java.net.URI;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

CloseableHttpClient httpclient = HttpClients.createDefault();

try {

HttpUriRequest httpget = RequestBuilder.get()

.setUri(new URI("https://reqres.in/api/users"))

.addParameter("page", "1")

.build();

CloseableHttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);

try {

System.out.println(EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity()));

} finally {

response.close();

}

} finally {

httpclient.close();

}

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It is worth noting that, like Apache HttpClient, several other Java libraries are available that facilitate easier HTTP requests from Java code. The coverage of any other third-party library is beyond the scope of this article.

That’s all about making an HTTP GET request in Java.

Also See:

Send HTTP POST request in Java

Send HTTP GET request in Java

1. Using URLConnection/HttpURLConnection

2. Using Apache HttpClient API

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2. Using Apache `HttpClient` API