Package org.apache.http.client

The API for client-side HTTP communication.

See:
Description

Interface Summary

AuthenticationHandler	/** A handler for determining if an HTTP response represents an authentication challenge that was sent back to the client as a result of authentication failure.
CookieStore	This interface represents an abstract store for Cookie objects.
CredentialsProvider	Abstract credentials provider that maintains a collection of user credentials.
HttpClient	This interface represents only the most basic contract for HTTP request execution.
HttpRequestRetryHandler	A handler for determining if an HttpRequest should be retried after a recoverable exception during execution.
RedirectHandler	A handler for determining if an HTTP request should be redirected to a new location in response to an HTTP response received from the target server.
RequestDirector	A client-side request director.
ResponseHandler<T>	Handler that encapsulates the process of generating a response object from a HttpResponse.
UserTokenHandler	A handler for determining if the given execution context is user specific or not.

Exception Summary

CircularRedirectException	Signals a circular redirect
ClientProtocolException	Signals an error in the HTTP protocol.
HttpResponseException	Signals a non 2xx HTTP response.
NonRepeatableRequestException	Signals failure to retry the request due to non-repeatable request entity.
RedirectException	Signals violation of HTTP specification caused by an invalid redirect

Package org.apache.http.client Description

The API for client-side HTTP communication.

The usual execution flow can be demonstrated by the code snippet below:

HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();

// Prepare a request object
HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("http://www.apache.org/"); 

// Execute the request
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);

// Examine the response status
System.out.println(response.getStatusLine());

// Get hold of the response entity
HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

// If the response does not enclose an entity, there is no need
// to worry about connection release
if (entity != null) {
    InputStream instream = entity.getContent();
    try {
        
        BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(
                new InputStreamReader(instream));
        // do something useful with the response
        System.out.println(reader.readLine());
        
    } catch (IOException ex) {

        // In case of an IOException the connection will be released
        // back to the connection manager automatically
        throw ex;
        
    } catch (RuntimeException ex) {

        // In case of an unexpected exception you may want to abort
        // the HTTP request in order to shut down the underlying 
        // connection and release it back to the connection manager.
        httpget.abort();
        throw ex;
        
    } finally {

        // Closing the input stream will trigger connection release
        instream.close();
        
    }
}