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HttpClient POST request returns status 200 without any body (however it should be). Length of the content is -1

I use Apache HttpClient for POST requests to web service.
I'm getting
httpResult=200
however there is no body. I know that some body should be there as when I
use another POST call method then I'm getting the body in JSON format.
At this method the length of the response body = -1.
response.getEntity().getContentLength() = -1;
The result of EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity()) is empty string.
The code is:
CloseableHttpClient client = HttpClients.createDefault();
HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
JSONObject attributes = new JSONObject();
JSONObject main = new JSONObject();
attributes.put("201", "Frank");
main.put("attributes", attributes);
main.put("primary", "2");
String json = main.toString();
StringEntity entity = new StringEntity(json);
httpPost.setEntity(entity);
httpPost.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
httpPost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
CloseableHttpResponse response = client.execute(httpPost);
httpResult = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
client.close();
if (httpResult == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
HttpEntity ent = response.getEntity();
Long length = ent.getContentLength();
System.out.println("Length: " + length);// length = -1
}
Could anyone give my some hint how to solve the issue?
In addition I would like to add the code that gives me a correct response body. At this case I use HttpURLConnection.
HttpURLConnection urlConnect = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
urlConnect.setConnectTimeout(10000);
urlConnect.setRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");
urlConnect.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/json");
urlConnect.setRequestMethod("POST");
JSONObject attributes = new JSONObject();
JSONObject main = new JSONObject();
attributes.put("201", "Frank");
main.put("primary", "2");
main.put("attributes", attributes);
urlConnect.setDoOutput(true);
OutputStreamWriter wr = new OutputStreamWriter(urlConnect.getOutputStream());
wr.write(main.toString());
wr.flush();
httpResult = urlConnect.getResponseCode();
System.out.println("Http Result: " + httpResult);
if (httpResult == HttpURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
InputStream response = urlConnect.getInputStream(); // correct not empty response body
...
}

Please move the client.close(); to the end, i.e., after working with the response.
And to extract the response from HttpUrlConnection use the following
InputStream response = urlConnect.getInputStream();
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(response));
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String line;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
sb.append(line+"\n");
}
br.close();
JSONObject object = new JSONObject(sb.toString()); //Converted to JSON Object from JSON string - Assuming response is a valid JSON object.

How to parse/query a static html page using java and httpclient

Here is the Http Post request using the HttpClient API.This piece of code lets me fetch the entire page content in the raw html format.My requirement is to send some parameters to this method such that it fetches only required data(like in a database) in readable format.By 'readable' I mean without the html tags.I dont know if JSON has to be brought in here.
I went through JSoup , but it seems to be doing the job of a scraper.
So how should I proceed with the html content I currently have?
private void sendPost() throws Exception {
String url = "https://www.elitmus.com/jobs";
HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
HttpPost post = new HttpPost(url);
// add header
post.setHeader("User-Agent", USER_AGENT);
List<NameValuePair> urlParameters = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("sn", "C02G8416DRJM"));
urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("cn", ""));
urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("locale", ""));
urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("caller", ""));
urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("num", "12345"));
post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(urlParameters));
HttpResponse response = client.execute(post);
System.out.println("\nSending 'POST' request to URL : " + url);
System.out.println("Post parameters : " + post.getEntity());
System.out.println("Response Code : " +
response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode());
BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent()));
StringBuffer result = new StringBuffer();
String line = "";
while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
result.append(line);
}
System.out.println(result.toString());
}
}

Why am I getting HTTP 400 bad request

I am using an HTTP client (code copied from http://www.mkyong.com/java/apache-httpclient-examples/) to send post requests. I have been trying to use it with http://postcodes.io to look up a bulk of postcodes but failed. According to http://postcodes.io I should send a post request to http://api.postcodes.io/postcodes in the following JSON form: {"postcodes" : ["OX49 5NU", "M32 0JG", "NE30 1DP"]} but I am always getting HTTP Response Code 400.
I have included my code below. Please tell me what am I doing wrong?
Thanks
private void sendPost() throws Exception {
String url = "http://api.postcodes.io/postcodes";
HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
HttpPost post = new HttpPost(url);
List<NameValuePair> urlParameters = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
urlParameters.add(new BasicNameValuePair("postcodes", "[\"OX49 5NU\", \"M32 0JG\", \"NE30 1DP\"]"));
post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(urlParameters));
HttpResponse response = client.execute(post);
System.out.println("Response Code : "
+ response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode());
System.out.println("Reason : "
+ response.getStatusLine().getReasonPhrase());
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent()));
StringBuffer result = new StringBuffer();
String line = "";
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
result.append(line);
}
br.close();
System.out.println(result.toString());
}

This works, HTTP.UTF_8 is deprecated:
String url = "http://api.postcodes.io/postcodes";
HttpClient client = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
HttpPost post = new HttpPost(url);
StringEntity params =new StringEntity("{\"postcodes\" : [\"OX49 5NU\", \"M32 0JG\", \"NE30 1DP\"]}");
post.addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
post.setEntity(params);

Jon Skeet is right (as usual, I might add), you are basically sending a form and it defaults to form-url-encoding.
You could try something like this instead:
String jsonString = "{\"postcodes\" : [\"OX49 5NU\", \"M32 0JG\", \"NE30 1DP\"]}";
StringEntity entity = new StringEntity(jsonObj.toString(), HTTP.UTF_8);
entity.setContentType("application/json");
post.setEntity(entity);

settHeader ("content type", "") - confusion

I have a function with which I want to POST two variables to the php side, after these two variables match and the server processes the result, I want to return result in JSON. As of now my set header property looks like the following:
httppost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
But while reading on at Wikipedia I found that the content type should be application/x-www-form-urlencoded and to accept JSON it should be Accept: application/json I want more clarity on this, how do I modify my code to achieve my desired result? As of now I am using local host and my POST variables seem to be not delivered on the php side. Following is my complete function:
public void parse(String last, String pwd){
String lastIndex = last;
DefaultHttpClient http = new DefaultHttpClient(new BasicHttpParams());
System.out.println("URL is: "+CONNECT_URL);
HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(CONNECT_URL);
httppost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
try{
List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(2);
nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("key", password));
nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("last_index", lastIndex));
httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
System.out.println("Post variables(Key): "+password+"");
System.out.println("Post variables(last index): "+lastIndex);
HttpResponse resp = http.execute(httppost);
HttpEntity entity = resp.getEntity();
ins = entity.getContent();
BufferedReader bufread = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(ins, "UTF-8"), 8);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String line = null;
while((line = bufread.readLine()) != null){
sb.append(line +"\n");
}
result = sb.toString();
System.out.println("Result: "+result);
// readAndParseJSON(result);
}catch (Exception e){
System.out.println("Error: "+e);
}finally{
try{
if(ins != null){
ins.close();
}
}catch(Exception smash){
System.out.println("Squish: "+smash);
}
}
// return result;
}

You have a caps problem. Try "Content-Type" rather than "Content-type" (or use the const HTTP.CONTENT_TYPE).

It appears that your code is actually doing what that article describes, except that
// httppost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
httppost.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
httppost.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
You are adding the x-www-form-urlencoded content here
httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));

Android: HttpPost not work

Hi guy's (sorry for my english error :P ) i have a problem, I'm trying to post a variable (id_art) to a php page, the problem is that I can't understand if the variable is not sent properly, or if I read it wrong php side.
JAVA CODE:
HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(myurl);
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
String json, result = "";
//Build jsonObject
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();
jsonObject.accumulate("id_articolo", id_art);
//Convert JSONObject to JSON to String
json = jsonObject.toString();
//Set json to StringEntity
StringEntity se = new StringEntity(json);
//Set httpPost Entity
httpPost.setEntity(se);
//Set some headers to inform server about the type of the content
httpPost.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
httpPost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
//Execute POST request to the given URL
HttpResponse httpResponse = httpclient.execute(httpPost);
//Receive response as inputStream
StatusLine statusLine = httpResponse.getStatusLine();
int statusCode = statusLine.getStatusCode();
//Convert input stream to string
if (statusCode == 200){
HttpEntity entity = httpResponse.getEntity();
InputStream content = entity.getContent();
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(content));
String line="";
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
builder.append(line);
result = builder.toString();
}
System.out.println("DEBUG"+" "+result);
PHP CODE
<?php
include_once('configurazione.php');
header("Content-Type: application/json");
mysql_set_charset('utf8');
$value = json_decode(stripslashes($_POST),true);
var_dump($value);
?>
result is NULL... Why ????
Tnks 4 help
EDIT 1
I try to edit my php code replacing
this : json_decode(stripslashes($_POST),true);
with: $value = json_decode($_POST);
But the result is the same.. NULL
EDIT 2
I try to replace
in .JAVA
httpPost.setEntity(new StringEntity(yourJson.toString(),"UTF-8"));
in .PHP
$value = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'));
echo $value ;
but result is NULL

in .JAVA
httpPost.setEntity(new StringEntity(yourJson.toString(),"UTF-8"));
in .PHP
$value = file_get_contents('php://input');
var_dump(json_decode($value , true));

try with this
in .JAVA
List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(1);
nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("json", yourJson.toString()));
httpPost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
in .PHP
$value = $_POST['json'];
var_dump(json_decode($value , true));

I believe you cannot simply send StringEntity, because POST parameters are expected to be key=>value pairs. That means you need to give a name to your parameter, let's say json.
Then you can do this:
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();
// here you can set up the data
HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(URL);
List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>(2);
nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("json", jsonObject.toString()));
// here you can add more POST data using nameValuePairs.add()
httppost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
On the PHP side, you'll just do
$value = json_decode($_POST['json'], true);
var_dump($value);