HttpURLConnection with Parameters

Question

I have a URL which I pass in that looks like this

http://somecompany.com/restws/ebi/SVI/4048/?Name=Tra&Brand=Software: WebSphere - Open App Servers

It does not like the 2nd parameter (Brand). From a browser this querystring above works fine but as soon as I execute in Java, it fails. When I change the webservice to accept a single parameter, then this URL works fine

http://somecompany.com/restws/ebi/SVI/4048/?Name=Tra

It seems java is having issues with the 2nd parameter. I have tried escape characters and everything else I can think of but nothing seems to work. Please Help!

String uri = "somecompany.com/restws/ebi/SVI/4048/?Name=" 
           + name+ "&Brand=Software: WebSphere - Open App Servers";

URL url;

try {
    url = new URL(uri);
    HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
    connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
    connection.setRequestProperty("Accept", "application/xml");
}
...

Answer 1

Try url encoding your parameters.

Something like this:

String uri = "somecompany.com/restws/ebi/SVI/4048/?Name=" +name+ "&Brand=";
uri = URLEncoder.encode("Software: WebSphere - Open App Servers", "utf-8");

Answer 2

I'd perhaps use a library that can handle HTTP parameters properly and provide suitable encoding etc. See HttpComponents and the tutorial for more info.