Try Internet Connectivity only for few Seconds

Question

I am trying to connect to internet where I have to fetch data, if the time exceeds more than 5 secs to connect I have to finish the process & continue to work offline.
Everything is working fine, sometimes it takes around 10secs to return when internet is not available, Now I have to return the xml == null; when the time exceeds more than time limit,
I don't want to do this in Async Task

    public String getUrlData(String url) {
    String xml = null;

    DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
    System.out.println("waiting");
    HttpResponse httpResponse;

    try {
        // start the timer here

        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
        HttpEntity httpEntity = httpResponse.getEntity();
        xml = EntityUtils.toString(httpEntity);

        // check if the timer has exceeded by "if else"
        // move to "return xml;" Manually when exceeds 5sec, but how?

    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return xml;

}

Edited Code after this answer

public String getUrlData(String url) {
    String xml = null;

    final int TIMEOUT_MILLISEC = 5000; // 5 seconds

    HttpParams httpParams = new BasicHttpParams();
    HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParams, TIMEOUT_MILLISEC);
    HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParams, TIMEOUT_MILLISEC);

    DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParams);
    HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
    System.out.println("waiting");
    HttpResponse httpResponse;

    try {
        // start the timer here
        System.out.println("Started");
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
        HttpEntity httpEntity = httpResponse.getEntity();
        xml = EntityUtils.toString(httpEntity);

    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    System.out.println("Ended");
    return xml;

}

LogCat Here >> 20 Secs

Answer 1

All you need to do is to define a timeout limit for your connections. For example:

final int TIMEOUT_MILLISEC = 5000;  // 5 seconds

HttpParams httpParams = new BasicHttpParams();
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParams, TIMEOUT_MILLISEC);
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParams, TIMEOUT_MILLISEC);

HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParams);

and afterwards, use httpClient in the same way you are using it.

---

Edit

public String getUrlData(String url) {
String xml = null;

final int TIMEOUT_MILLISEC = 5000;  // 5 seconds

HttpParams httpParams = new BasicHttpParams();
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParams, TIMEOUT_MILLISEC);
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParams, TIMEOUT_MILLISEC);

DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParams);
HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
System.out.println("waiting");
HttpResponse httpResponse;

try {
    // start the timer here

    httpResponse = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
    HttpEntity httpEntity = httpResponse.getEntity();
    xml = EntityUtils.toString(httpEntity);

    // check if the timer has exceeded by "if else"
    // move to "return xml;" Manually when exceeds 5sec, but how?

} catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
    e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
    e.printStackTrace();
}
return xml;

}

Answer 2

How about this:

Thread thread = new Thread() {
  @Override
  public void run() {
    // do the downloading thing..
  }
};
thread.start();
thread.join(5000);