Android can't send GET request with HttpURLConnection

Question

Hi all,

I'm trying to use an HttpURLConnection in my application. I set my request method to 'GET', but when I try to retrieve the output stream then the method is changed to 'POST' ! I'm not sure that is the reason, but my JSON server (I use JAX-RS) returns a blank page when I send a request using a 'POST'.

Here is a snippet of my code:

// Create the connection
HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection) new URL(getUrl() + uriP).openConnection();
// Add cookies if necessary
if (cookies != null) {
  for (String cookie : cookies) {
    con.addRequestProperty("Cookie", cookie);
    Log.d("JSONServer", "Added cookie: " + cookie);
  }
}
con.setDoOutput(true);
con.setDoInput(true);
con.setUseCaches(false);
con.setRequestMethod("GET");
con.setConnectTimeout(20000);
// Add 'Accept' property in header otherwise JAX-RS/CXF will answer a XML stream
con.addRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");

// Get the output stream
OutputStream os = con.getOutputStream();

// !!!!! HERE THE REQUEST METHOD HAS BEEN CHANGED !!!!!!
OutputStreamWriter wr = new OutputStreamWriter(os);
wr.write(requestP);
// Send the request
wr.flush();

Thanks for you answer. Eric

Answer 1

But GET requests are supposed to have no content... by writing to the connections output stream you are changing the nature of the request to a POST. The library is being quite helpful in spotting that you are doing this... the doc for getOutputStream explicitly states "The default request method changes to "POST" when this method is called."

If you need to send data up to the server in the GET then it needs to be encoded in URL parameters in the normal way.