11.8. Sending POST Data from a File
Problem
You need to send the data from a file in an HTTP POST request.
Solution
Create a PostMethod
, create a
File
object, and call setRequestBody( )
and setRequestContentLength()
on the method before it is executed. The
PostMethod
will send a request with a
Content-Length
header, which reflects the size
of the file sent in the request body. The following example
demonstrates the use of PostMethod
to send data
from a file in a request body:
import
org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;import
org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpException;import
org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.PostMethod; HttpClient client =new
HttpClient( ); // Create POST method String weblintURL = "http://ats.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cgi.tcl/echo.cgi"; PostMethod method =new
PostMethod( weblintURL ); File file =new
File( "project.xml" ); method.setRequestBody( new FileInputStream( file ) ); method.setRequestContentLength( (int)file.length( ) ); // Execute and print response client.executeMethod( method ); String response = method.getResponseBodyAsString( ); System.out.println( response ); method.releaseConnection( );
The previous example hits a CGI script, which echoes the contents of the request body. When this example is executed, the response body is printed with the contents of the file that was uploaded in an HTTP POST request.
Discussion
This recipe sets the request body of an HTTP POST directly by passing
a File
object to method.setRequestBody()
. In addition to accepting ...
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