Apache HttpClient in Java, instream.toString = org.apache.http.conn.EofSensorInputStream

Question

I am GETting a page with Apache HttpClient and I want to store the server reply's http body into a string so I can then manipulate this string and print it to the console.

Unfortunately when running this method I get this message back:

17:52:01,862  INFO Driver:53 - fetchPage STARTING
17:52:07,580  INFO Driver:73 - fetchPage ENDING, took 5716
org.apache.http.conn.EofSensorInputStream@5e0eb724

The fetchPage Class:

public String fetchPage(String part){
    log.info("fetchPage STARTING");
    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    String reply;

    String searchurl = URL + URL_SEARCH_BASE + part + URL_SEARCH_TAIL;

    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(searchurl);
    HttpResponse response;
    try {
        response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
        HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
        if (entity != null) {
            InputStream instream = entity.getContent();
            int l;
            byte[] tmp = new byte[2048];
            while ((l = instream.read(tmp)) != -1) {
            }
            long elapsedTimeMillis = System.currentTimeMillis()-start;
            log.info("fetchPage ENDING, took " + elapsedTimeMillis);
            reply = instream.toString();
            System.out.println(reply);
            return reply;
        }
    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return null;
}

Answer 1

You are calling the toString on the InputStream after it has already read through. You need to create your string from the byte arrays. The simpler way to get the String version of the content is to use the EntityUtils.toString(HttpEntity)

The exact implementation would look like:

import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;

public String fetchPage(String part){
    log.info("fetchPage STARTING");
    long start = System.currentTimeMillis();

    String reply;

    String searchurl = URL + URL_SEARCH_BASE + part + URL_SEARCH_TAIL;

    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(searchurl);
    HttpResponse response;
    try {
        response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
        HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
        if (entity != null) {
            return EntityUtils.toString(entity);
        }
    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return null;
}