Execute HTTP POST Requests In Android

Amarnath Natarajan
12 years ago
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Android, Internet, Smartphone

HTTP POST requests is essential to any Android apps that utilizes internet, follow the simple steps below to implement the functionality

• Declare Internet permissions in the manifest by adding the following line to AndroidManifest.xml. This allows your application to use any Internet connections.
  <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.INTERNET” />
• Create your HttpClient and HttpPost objects to execute the POST request. The address object is a String representing your POST’s destination, such as a PHP page.

  HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
  HttpPost post = new HttpPost(address);

• Set your POST data. This is done by creating and setting a list of NameValuePairs as your HttpPost’s entity. Be sure to catch the UnsupportedEncodingException thrown by HttpPost.setEntity().

  List<NameValuePair> pairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
  pairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair(“key1”, “value1”));
  pairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair(“key2”, “value2”));
  post.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(pairs));

• Execute the POST request. This returns an HttpResponse object, whose data can be extracted and parsed. Be sure to catch the ClientProtocolException and IOException thrown.

  HttpResponse response = client.execute(post);