How to add parameters to HttpURLConnection using POST using NameValuePair

Question

You can get output stream for the connection and write the parameter query string to it.

URL url = new URL("http://yoururl.com");
HttpsURLConnection conn = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();
conn.setReadTimeout(10000);
conn.setConnectTimeout(15000);
conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
conn.setDoInput(true);
conn.setDoOutput(true);

List<NameValuePair> params = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("firstParam", paramValue1));
params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("secondParam", paramValue2));
params.add(new BasicNameValuePair("thirdParam", paramValue3));

OutputStream os = conn.getOutputStream();
BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(
        new OutputStreamWriter(os, "UTF-8"));
writer.write(getQuery(params));
writer.flush();
writer.close();
os.close();

conn.connect();

...

private String getQuery(List<NameValuePair> params) throws UnsupportedEncodingException
{
    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
    boolean first = true;

    for (NameValuePair pair : params)
    {
        if (first)
            first = false;
        else
            result.append("&");

        result.append(URLEncoder.encode(pair.getName(), "UTF-8"));
        result.append("=");
        result.append(URLEncoder.encode(pair.getValue(), "UTF-8"));
    }

    return result.toString();
}

Since the NameValuePair is deprecated. Thought of sharing my code

public String  performPostCall(String requestURL,
            HashMap<String, String> postDataParams) {

        URL url;
        String response = "";
        try {
            url = new URL(requestURL);

            HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            conn.setReadTimeout(15000);
            conn.setConnectTimeout(15000);
            conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
            conn.setDoInput(true);
            conn.setDoOutput(true);


            OutputStream os = conn.getOutputStream();
            BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(
                    new OutputStreamWriter(os, "UTF-8"));
            writer.write(getPostDataString(postDataParams));

            writer.flush();
            writer.close();
            os.close();
            int responseCode=conn.getResponseCode();

            if (responseCode == HttpsURLConnection.HTTP_OK) {
                String line;
                BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
                while ((line=br.readLine()) != null) {
                    response+=line;
                }
            }
            else {
                response="";

            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return response;
    }

....

  private String getPostDataString(HashMap<String, String> params) throws UnsupportedEncodingException{
        StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
        boolean first = true;
        for(Map.Entry<String, String> entry : params.entrySet()){
            if (first)
                first = false;
            else
                result.append("&");

            result.append(URLEncoder.encode(entry.getKey(), "UTF-8"));
            result.append("=");
            result.append(URLEncoder.encode(entry.getValue(), "UTF-8"));
        }

        return result.toString();
    }

If you don't need the ArrayList<NameValuePair> for parameters, this is a shorter solution that builds the query string using the Uri.Builder class:

URL url = new URL("http://yoururl.com");
HttpsURLConnection conn = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();
conn.setReadTimeout(10000);
conn.setConnectTimeout(15000);
conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
conn.setDoInput(true);
conn.setDoOutput(true);

Uri.Builder builder = new Uri.Builder()
        .appendQueryParameter("firstParam", paramValue1)
        .appendQueryParameter("secondParam", paramValue2)
        .appendQueryParameter("thirdParam", paramValue3);
String query = builder.build().getEncodedQuery();

OutputStream os = conn.getOutputStream();
BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(
            new OutputStreamWriter(os, "UTF-8"));
writer.write(query);
writer.flush();
writer.close();
os.close();

conn.connect();

One solution is to make your own params string.

This is the actual method I've been using for my latest project. You need to change args from hashtable to namevaluepair's:

private static String getPostParamString(Hashtable<String, String> params) {
    if(params.size() == 0)
        return "";

    StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
    Enumeration<String> keys = params.keys();
    while(keys.hasMoreElements()) {
        buf.append(buf.length() == 0 ? "" : "&");
        String key = keys.nextElement();
        buf.append(key).append("=").append(params.get(key));
    }
    return buf.toString();
}

POSTing the params:

OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(conn.getOutputStream());
writer.write(getPostParamString(req.getPostParams()));

I think I found exactly what you need. It may help others.

You can use the method UrlEncodedFormEntity.writeTo(OutputStream).

UrlEncodedFormEntity formEntity = new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvp); 
http.connect();

OutputStream output = null;
try {
  output = http.getOutputStream();    
  formEntity.writeTo(output);
} finally {
 if (output != null) try { output.close(); } catch (IOException ioe) {}
}

The accepted answer throws a ProtocolException at:

OutputStream os = conn.getOutputStream();

because it does not enable the output for the URLConnection object. The solution should include this:

conn.setDoOutput(true);

to make it work.