How to fetch HTML in Java

Question

Without the use of any external library, what is the simplest way to fetch a website's HTML content into a String?

Answer 1

I'm currently using this:

String content = null;
URLConnection connection = null;
try {
  connection =  new URL("http://www.google.com").openConnection();
  Scanner scanner = new Scanner(connection.getInputStream());
  scanner.useDelimiter("\\Z");
  content = scanner.next();
}catch ( Exception ex ) {
    ex.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println(content);

But not sure if there's a better way.

Answer 2

I just left this post in your other thread, though what you have above might work as well. I don't think either would be any easier than the other. The Apache packages can be accessed by just using import org.apache.commons.HttpClient at the top of your code.

Edit: Forgot the link ;)

Answer 3

@Justin Sorry, I was refreshing and then thought that, since the question was answered, you wouldn't come back again. ;) Looking at your link right now.

Answer 4

This has worked well for me:

URL url = new URL(theURL);
InputStream is = url.openStream();
int ptr = 0;
StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
while ((ptr = is.read()) != -1) {
    buffer.append((char)ptr);
}

Not sure at to whether the other solution(s) provided are any more efficient or not.

Answer 5

@Scott Yes, I also wonder whether using Scanner or StringBuffer has an impact on efficiency/performance.

If anybody knows, please comment on it.

Thank you.