Talking To Web Servers Via HTTP In Android 1.0

If you have worked with Google Android prior to the 1.0 release, you probably have noticed that Google has upgraded the Apache HttpClient module in Android 1.0 from 3.x to a recent alpha release of version 4, which is a complete rewrite and brings with it a host of API changes. Unfortunately, the alpha version included in Android 1.0 is both terribly documented and lacking an important feature: supporting multipart requests using the multipart/form-data MIME type. Sending GET requests has changed significantly, too. Where you were formerly be able to add request parameters to a GetMethod object, you now will have to build a query string on your own and initialize an HttpGet object with it.

Here is how HTTP GET works in Android 1.0:

HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();

StringBuilder uriBuilder = new StringBuilder(SERVICE_ENDPOINT);
uriBuilder.append("?param0=" + param0);
uriBuilder.append("&param1=" + param1);
uriBuilder.append("&paramN=" + paramN);

HttpGet request = new HttpGet(uriBuilder.toString());
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);

int status = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();

// we assume that the response body contains the error message
if (status != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
    ByteArrayOutputStream ostream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    response.getEntity().writeTo(ostream);
    Log.e("HTTP CLIENT", ostream.toString()));
} else {
    InputStream content = response.getEntity().getContent();
    // <consume response>
    content.close(); // this will also close the connection
}

Sending a multipart request first involves some environmental setup, since the required libraries are not bundled with Android 1.0. First, go to the Apache HttpClient download page and download the distribution called “Binary with dependencies”. In that package you’ll find two libraries: apache-mime4j-0.4.jar and httpmime-4.0-beta1.jar. Copy these files to e.g. the lib/ folder of your Android project and add them to the build path. You can now use a MultipartEntity to send multipart POSTs as such: 

 

HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();

HttpPost request = new HttpPost(SERVICE_ENDPOINT);
MultipartEntity entity = new MultipartEntity();
entity.addPart("param0", new StringBody("value0"));
entity.addPart("param1", new StringBody(Double.toString(1.0)));
entity.addPart("paramN", new FileBody(new File("/bar/baz")));
request.setEntity(entity);

HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);
int status = response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();

if (status != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
    // see above  
} else {
    // see above
}

And that’s that. I assume Google has included this early build of HttpClient 4 in Android 1.0 so that they will remain API-stable for the years to come, without being stuck with a legacy HTTP component.

–

References:
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_frm/thread/e4230ed22c196772
http://wiki.apache.org/HttpComponents/HttpCoreTutorial
http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client/examples.html