Android HTTP Post Request doesn't work, but stock Java does?

Question

So I have 2 codes which supposedly do the same. The one I'm using on Android however, returns the wrong HTML data. The stock Java one returns the correct data after sending the request. I have both codes here. Can you tell me (EVEN THOUGH I GAVE INTE.NET PERMISSION TO ANDROID) why the Android one isn't working, while the stock Java one is working? This is the Android code:

EDIT: I FOUND THE FIX. If you're going to use a StringEntity to send such a String to the Server, you have to set the content to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. I've edited my code to show this:

public static String sendNamePostRequest(String urlString) {

    HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();

    HttpPost post = new HttpPost(urlString);

    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();

    try {
           StringEntity se = new StringEntity(
                "__EVENTTARGET=&__EVENTARGUMENT=&__VIEWSTATE=%2FwEPDwULLTE3NDM5MzMwMzRkZA%3D%3D&__EVENTVALIDATION=%2FwEWBAL%2B%2B4CfBgK52%2BLYCQK1gpH7BAL0w%2FPHAQ%3D%3D&_nameTextBox=John&_zoekButton=Zoek&numberOfLettersField=3"); 

        se.setContent("application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

        post.setEntity();

        HttpResponse response = client.execute(post);
        HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                entity.getContent()));
        String in = "";

        while ((in = br.readLine()) != null) {
            sb.append(in + "\n");
        }

        br.close();

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return sb.toString();
}

This is the stock Java code:

public String sendNamePostRequest(String urlString) {

    StringBuffer sb = null;

    try {
        String data = "__EVENTTARGET=&__EVENTARGUMENT=&__VIEWSTATE=%2FwEPDwULLTE3NDM5MzMwMzRkZA%3D%3D&__EVENTVALIDATION=%2FwEWBAL%2B%2B4CfBgK52%2BLYCQK1gpH7BAL0w%2FPHAQ%3D%3D&_nameTextBox=John&_zoekButton=Zoek&numberOfLettersField=3";

        // String data = "";

        URL requestUrl = new URL(urlString);

        HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) requestUrl
                .openConnection();

        conn.setDoOutput(true);
        conn.setDoInput(true);
        conn.setRequestMethod("POST");

        DataOutputStream dos = new DataOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream());

        dos.writeBytes(data);
        dos.flush();

        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                conn.getInputStream()));

        String in = "";
        sb = new StringBuffer();

        while ((in = br.readLine()) != null) {
            sb.append(in + "\n");
        }

        dos.close();
        br.close();

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

Answer 1

If the data is getting to the server, you might want to see what is happening there (logs, errors, exceptions, etc.) Other than that:

• use can use HttpURLConnection , so you can have the exact same code
• For HttpClient, not sure whey you are encoding the entity yourself. Use NameValuePair to set parameters, and HttpClient will encode them for you (correctly).

Answer 2

You can use NameValuePair and UrlEncodedFormEntity:

List<BasicNameValuePair> nvps = new ArrayList<BasicNameValuePair>();
nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair(KEY1, VALUE1));
nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair(KEY2, VALUE2));
UrlEncodedFormEntity p_entity = new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvps,HTTP.UTF_8);
post.setEntity(p_entity);