Why does this Cloudant java api code not update existing database record?

Question

I have this piece of code written to update an existing database record. It returns with no error but does not update the record. I ensured that the "_rev" and "_id" parameter is the same as the latest read and verified it. Is there anything specifically wrong about this code?

private void updateUserInfo(String dataTmp) {
    try {
        JSONObject newObj = new JSONObject(dataTmp);
        String data = newObj.toString();
        System.out.println("About to add the following string to database: " + data);
        URL url = new URL("https://abc:xyz@pqr.cloudant.com:443/databaseName/");

        HttpURLConnection httpCon = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        httpCon.setDoOutput(true);
        httpCon.setRequestMethod("POST");
        final String encodedUserPass = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(("abc" + ":" + "abc").getBytes()));

        @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
        String encodedData = URLEncoder.encode(data);
        httpCon.setRequestProperty("Content-type", "application/json");
        httpCon.setRequestProperty("Content-Length", String.valueOf(encodedData.length()));
        httpCon.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + encodedUserPass);

        OutputStreamWriter out = new OutputStreamWriter(httpCon.getOutputStream());
        out.write(data);
        out.close();

        Runtime.getRuntime().gc();

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        System.out.println("Error while updating the user record");
    }
}

Answer 1

Your URL is incorrect, I think.

You are correctly sending your credentials using a Basic Authentication header - they should not be included directly in the URL. Some HTTP libraries / utilities (eg cURL) have a feature where they parse the credentials in the URL and convert them into a basic auth header but when using most standard HTTP libraries you will have to do this yourself. The following should work:

private void updateUserInfo(String dataTmp) {
    try {
        JSONObject newObj = new JSONObject(dataTmp);
        String data = newObj.toString();
        System.out.println("About to add the following string to database: " + data);
        URL url = new URL("https://pqr.cloudant.com/databaseName/");

        HttpURLConnection httpCon = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        httpCon.setDoOutput(true);
        httpCon.setRequestMethod("POST");
        final String encodedUserPass = new String(Base64.encodeBase64(("abc" + ":" + "abc").getBytes()));

        @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
        String encodedData = URLEncoder.encode(data);
        httpCon.setRequestProperty("Content-type", "application/json");
        httpCon.setRequestProperty("Content-Length", String.valueOf(encodedData.length()));
        httpCon.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + encodedUserPass);

        OutputStreamWriter out = new OutputStreamWriter(httpCon.getOutputStream());
        out.write(data);
        out.close();

        Runtime.getRuntime().gc();

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        System.out.println("Error while updating the user record");
    }
}