servlet having trouble with POST data

[Ben Wu]

I'm having trouble with a servlet that i'm writing that's designed to handle POST data from a java application.
I've managed to get the servlet to recognize GET data using URL("http://localhost:7001/test2?data=foo") calls, but when I tried the following code snippet (pretty much lifted from the java docs)
--------------------------------------------
url = new URL("http://127.0.0.1:7001/test2");
urlConn = url.openConnection();
urlConn.setDoInput(true);
urlConn.setDoOutput(true);
urlConn.setUseCaches(false);
urlConn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
printout = new DataOutputStream (urlConn.getOutputStream());
String content =("param1=" + URLEncoder.encode("foo"));
printout.writeBytes(content);
printout.flush ();
printout.close ();
--------------------------------------------
I get nothing. I tried mapping doPost to doGet, but it appears that the servlet is ignoring the post data.
though i can temporarily get around using GET methods, i'm gonna be hosed when I try to transfer files. any ideas?
TIA
-ben

[Tim Holloway]

I believe the proper format for POST is in line format:
param1
value1
param2
value2
The the servlet should be able to read values with getParameter exactly as it does with GET. You might want to check the RFC that defines POST for the finer details.

[William Brogden]

As I recall, you also have to use the setRequestMethod("POST") method, otherwise it defaults to a "GET".
When you do an openConnection with a URL that specifies "http" you actually get an instance of the class HttpURLConnection (it extends URLConnection)
There is where you find HTTP specific methods.
Bill

[Mike Curwen]

If you are manually building the GET and POST requests from a GUI app, check out the following for what they look like:

Regular: http://www.javaranch.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/006990.html
Multipart: http://www.javaranch.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/006987.html

[Meng Tan]

Hi,
u can try encoding the parameter name as well:
String content =URLEncoder.encode("param1") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("foo");