How to get the socket used by HttpURLConnection in java

Question

There is a socket which HttpURLConnection use internally to send data. I know it is now visible from outside, but I am wondering if there's any workaround so that I could get access to this socket (without changing the implementation of HttpURLConnection)? I need this hack to do some instrumentation.

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

Sockets are created by Socket Factories. You can write your own SocketFactory, delegating to the original socket factory. In your Socket Factory, you can manipulate the socket. That's one way I can think of for you to get access to the socket, but I'm going to warn you in advance - it's not going to be pretty.