How to add parameters to a HTTP GET request in Android?

Question

I use a List of NameValuePair and URLEncodedUtils to create the url string I want.

protected String addLocationToUrl(String url){
    if(!url.endsWith("?"))
        url += "?";

    List<NameValuePair> params = new LinkedList<NameValuePair>();

    if (lat != 0.0 && lon != 0.0){
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("lat", String.valueOf(lat)));
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("lon", String.valueOf(lon)));
    }

    if (address != null && address.getPostalCode() != null)
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("postalCode", address.getPostalCode()));
    if (address != null && address.getCountryCode() != null)
        params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("country",address.getCountryCode()));

    params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("user", agent.uniqueId));

    String paramString = URLEncodedUtils.format(params, "utf-8");

    url += paramString;
    return url;
}

To build uri with get parameters, Uri.Builder provides a more effective way.

Uri uri = new Uri.Builder()
    .scheme("http")
    .authority("foo.com")
    .path("someservlet")
    .appendQueryParameter("param1", foo)
    .appendQueryParameter("param2", bar)
    .build();

As of HttpComponents 4.2+ there is a new class URIBuilder, which provides convenient way for generating URIs.

You can use either create URI directly from String URL:

List<NameValuePair> listOfParameters = ...;

URI uri = new URIBuilder("http://example.com:8080/path/to/resource?mandatoryParam=someValue")
    .addParameter("firstParam", firstVal)
    .addParameter("secondParam", secondVal)
    .addParameters(listOfParameters)
    .build();

Otherwise, you can specify all parameters explicitly:

URI uri = new URIBuilder()
    .setScheme("http")
    .setHost("example.com")
    .setPort(8080)
    .setPath("/path/to/resource")
    .addParameter("mandatoryParam", "someValue")
    .addParameter("firstParam", firstVal)
    .addParameter("secondParam", secondVal)
    .addParameters(listOfParameters)
    .build();

Once you have created URI object, then you just simply need to create HttpGet object and perform it:

//create GET request
HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(uri);
//perform request
httpClient.execute(httpGet ...//additional parameters, handle response etc.

The method

setParams() 

like

httpget.getParams().setParameter("http.socket.timeout", new Integer(5000));

only adds HttpProtocol parameters.

To execute the httpGet you should append your parameters to the url manually

HttpGet myGet = new HttpGet("http://foo.com/someservlet?param1=foo&param2=bar");

or use the post request the difference between get and post requests are explained here, if you are interested

List<NameValuePair> params = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("param1","value1");

String query = URLEncodedUtils.format(params, "utf-8");

URI url = URIUtils.createURI(scheme, userInfo, authority, port, path, query, fragment); //can be null
HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(url);

URI javadoc

Note: url = new URI(...) is buggy