How to get response body using HttpURLConnection, when code other than 2xx is returned?
I have problem with retrieving Json response in case when server returns error. See details below.
How I perform the request
I use java.net.HttpURLConnection
. I setup request properties, then I do:
conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
After that, when request is successful, I get response Json:
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader((conn.getInputStream())));
sb = new StringBuilder();
String output;
while ((output = br.readLine()) != null) {
sb.append(output);
}
return sb.toString();
... and the problem is:
I can't retrieve Json received when the server returns some error like 50x or 40x,. Following line throws IOException:
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader((conn.getInputStream())));
// throws java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 401 for URL: www.example.com
The server sends body for sure, I see it in external tool Burp Suite:
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
{"type":"AuthApiException","message":"AuthApiException","errors":[{"field":"email","message":"Invalid username and/or password."}]}
I can get response message (i.e. "Internal Server Error") and code (i.e. "500") using following methods:
conn.getResponseMessage();
conn.getResponseCode();
But I can't retrieve request body... maybe there is some method I didn't notice in the library?
If the response code isn't 200 or 2xx, use getErrorStream()
instead of getInputStream().
Wrong method was used for errors, here is the working code:
BufferedReader br = null;
if (100 <= conn.getResponseCode() && conn.getResponseCode() <= 399) {
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
} else {
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getErrorStream()));
}
This is an easy way to get a successful response from the server like PHP echo otherwise an error message.
BufferedReader br = null;
if (conn.getResponseCode() == 200) {
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
String strCurrentLine;
while ((strCurrentLine = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(strCurrentLine);
}
} else {
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(conn.getErrorStream()));
String strCurrentLine;
while ((strCurrentLine = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(strCurrentLine);
}
}