Equivalent of .NET's WebClient and HttpWebRequest in Java?

Question

.NET has the HttpWebRequest and WebClient classes for simulating a browser's requests.

I'd google it, but I'm not sure what keyword to use.

I want to write code that does does HTTP GETs and POSTs, along with cookies, in an applet or local .jar and gives me back the response in a text string or some other parseable structure.

Answer 1

Verify Webclient in Apache Cx JaxRs Library.

Checkout this: https://cxf.apache.org/javadoc/latest/org/apache/cxf/jaxrs/client/WebClient.html

Sample code looks below:

WebClient client = WebClient.create(url);
client.path(ADD_PATH).path("/books/2").accept("text/plain");
s = client.get(String.class);
System.out.println(s);

Answer 2

Apache HTTPClient has equivalent functionality, though the APIs are not exactly the same. Oakland Software has a table comparing their commercial product with various alternatives, including the Apache product. Apache's own opinion of the built-in HttpUrlConnection (quoted from the above linked-to page) is:

The jdk has the HttpUrlConnection which is limited and in many ways flawed.

Here's a link to the HTTPClient tutorial.