Question

Java Servlet HTTPServletRequest Post Data Retrieval/Reading

Asked by: slicer123

Folks,

I am trying to read the POST data sent via HTTP POST request using a .jsp HTTPServletRequest. Problem is the request.getReader() does not return the data stream. This was noted on various search result threads under, 'httpservletrequest getreader returns nothing', and seems to be the same issue I'm having, but I can't figure out how to get around the issue.

This is the same issue as had addressed using PHP, http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Web_Servers/Apache/Q_24581851.html

Thanks

<%@page import="java.io.BufferedReader" %>
 
<% 
 
if (request.getContentLength() > 0) {
      String line;
      
      try {
         BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(request.getReader());
       	while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
            // Process line...
            System.out.println(line);
       	}
       	rd.close();
      } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); }
}
%>

                                  
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Asked On
2009-08-07 at 09:57:02ID24635341
Topic

Java Server Pages (JSP)

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: ioantonPosted on 2009-08-07 at 10:20:55ID: 25044992

Here is an excerpt from java servlet Specification, which might answer your question:

The following are the conditions that must be met before post form data will
be populated to the parameter set:
1. The request is an HTTP or HTTPS request.
2. The HTTP method is POST
3. The content type is application/x-www-form-urlencoded
4. The servlet has made an initial call of any of the getParameter family of methods on the request object.
If the conditions are not met and the post form data is not included in the parameter set, the post data must still be available to the servlet via the request objects input stream. If the conditions are met, post form data will no longer be available for reading directly from the request objects input stream.

 

by: slicer123Posted on 2009-08-07 at 10:40:10ID: 25045199

OK, I see the call to getParameter family was important.

I changed the code as follows and received the POST data. However the output is not too pretty. Any ideas how to fix this up? Thanks

<%@page import="java.io.BufferedReader" %>
<%@page import="java.io.Reader" %>
<%@page import="java.util.Iterator" %>
 
 
<% 
if (request.getContentLength() > 0) {
      String line;
      
      try {
         java.util.HashMap hashMap = (java.util.HashMap)request.getParameterMap();
         Iterator iterator = hashMap.entrySet().iterator();
         while( iterator. hasNext() ){
        	System.out.println( iterator.next().toString() );
         }        
      } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); }
}
%>
 
--- client side invocation
 
$ wget --post-data="my test data" -q -O - http://localhost/jsp/remoteLogger.jsp
 
--- log output
 
[08/07 10:38:26] /jsp/remoteLogger.jsp starting
my test data=[Ljava.lang.String;@190973e
SCRIPT_URL=[Ljava.lang.String;@1b98b20
SERVER_NAME=[Ljava.lang.String;@5cee0b
[08/07 10:38:26] /jsp/remoteLogger.jsp finished (3ms)

                                              
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by: ioantonPosted on 2009-08-07 at 11:02:50ID: 25045393

Try this:

<%
 
if (request.getContentLength() > 0) {
    String line;
   
    try {
       java.util.HashMap hashMap = (java.util.HashMap)request.getParameterMap();
       Iterator iterator = hashMap.keySet().iterator();
       while( iterator.hasNext() ){
                   String key = (String)iterator.next();
                   System.out.println(key + "=" + request.getParameter(key));
       }        
    } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); }
}
%>

 

by: slicer123Posted on 2009-08-07 at 11:21:26ID: 25045562

This worked, thanks.

         while( iterator. hasNext() ){
        	   Map.Entry<Object,Object> me = (Map.Entry) iterator.next();
        	   String key =(String) me.getKey().toString();
            if (key.contains("SCRIPT_URL") || key.contains("SERVER_NAME")) {
               continue;
            } else
                System.out.println( key );
         }
                                              
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by: rrz@871311Posted on 2009-08-07 at 17:19:52ID: 25047715

Your original code in your question does work. It prints it to the console.  
Please try the following page if you want to see the output in the browser.


<%@page import="java.io.BufferedReader" %>
<% 
if (request.getContentLength() > 0) {
         String line;
         BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(request.getReader());
         out.print("before]");
         while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
                                                out.print(line);
         }
         rd.close();
         out.print("[after");
}
%>
<html>
<body>
<form method="post">
<input type="text" name="test"/>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>

                                              
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by: slicer123Posted on 2009-08-07 at 19:17:11ID: 25048038

Indeed, I did find that was true. One particular program was posting

connection.setRequestProperty("content-type", "text/plain;charset=UTF-8");

while the other was

content type is application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Therefore I did revise my jsp, using both methods.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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