retrieving contents of a page

[audrey11]

I need to do something in a java class where I can specify a URL to retrieve the contents of that url (so all the html for it).. I'm sure this is something straight-forward, I just don't know how to do it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[cjard]

heres something i threw together just now. its not pretty, but will give you the basic idea:

public class urler{

  //usage from command line: java urler <url to dump>
  public static void main(String[] argv)throws Exception{
    
    //make new URL, and call its openConnection() method. That gets us an HttpURLCOnnection object
    //we cant make one directly because it is an abstract class
    java.net.HttpURLConnection h = (java.net.HttpURLConnection)(new java.net.URL(argv[0])).openConnection();
    
    //do a get of the information
    h.setRequestMethod("GET");
    h.connect();
    
    //prints something like HTTP 200 OK or HTTP 400 Not Found
    System.out.println("HTTP "+h.getResponseCode()+" "+h.getResponseMessage());

    //how long is this thing anyways?
    System.out.println("Expecting "+h.getContentLength()+" bytes:");

    //buffered reader makes reading the response strings a doddle. InputStreamReader converts 
    //characters properly for us
    java.io.BufferedReader br = new java.io.BufferedReader(new java.io.InputStreamReader(h.getInputStream()));

    //read a line of the input
    String stuff = br.readLine();
    
    //buffered readers return null when tehre is nothing more to be read
    while(stuff!=null){
      System.out.println(stuff);
      stuff = br.readLine();
    }
  }
}