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Using java.net.URLConnection to fire and handle HTTP requests

Use of java.net.URLConnection is asked about pretty often here, and the Oracle tutorial is too concise about it.

That tutorial basically only shows how to fire a GET request and read the response. It doesn't explain anywhere how to use it to among others perform a POST request, set request headers, read response headers, deal with cookies, submit a HTML form, upload a file, etc.

So, how can I use java.net.URLConnection to fire and handle "advanced" HTTP requests?

How do I call one constructor from another in Java?

Is it possible to call a constructor from another (within the same class, not from a subclass)? If yes how? And what could be the best way to call another constructor (if there are several ways to do it)?

Java += operator

Until today I thought that for example:

i += j;

is just a shortcut for:

i = i + j;

But what if we try this:

int i = 5;
long j = 8;

Then i = i + j; will not compile but i += j; will compile fine.

Does it mean that in fact i += j; is a shortcut for something like this i = (type of i) (i + j)?

Initialization of an ArrayList in one line

I want to create a list of options for testing purposes. At first, I did this:

ArrayList<String> places = new ArrayList<String>();
places.add("Buenos Aires");
places.add("Córdoba");
places.add("La Plata");

Then I refactored the code as follows:

ArrayList<String> places = new ArrayList<String>(
    Arrays.asList("Buenos Aires", "Córdoba", "La Plata"));

Is there a better way to do this?

When to use LinkedList over ArrayList?

I've always been one to simply use:

List<String> names = new ArrayList<String>();

I use the interface as the type name for portability, so that when I ask questions such as these I can rework my code.

When should LinkedList be used over ArrayList and vice-versa?

Read/convert an InputStream to a String

If you have java.io.InputStream object, how should you process that object and produce a String?

Suppose I have an InputStream that contains text data, and I want to convert this to a String (for example, so I can write the contents of the stream to a log file).

What is the easiest way to take the InputStream and convert it to a String?

public String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) { 
    // ???
}

Why is subtracting these two times (in 1927) giving a strange result?

If I run the following program, which parses two date strings referencing times one second apart and compares them:

public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
    SimpleDateFormat sf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");  
    String str3 = "1927-12-31 23:54:07";  
    String str4 = "1927-12-31 23:54:08";  
    Date sDt3 = sf.parse(str3);  
    Date sDt4 = sf.parse(str4);  
    long ld3 = sDt3.getTime() /1000;  
    long ld4 = sDt4.getTime() /1000;
    System.out.println(ld4-ld3);
}

The output is:

353

Why is ld4-ld3 not 1 (as I would expect from the one-second difference in the times), but 353?

If I change the dates to times one second later:

String str3 = "1927-12-31 23:54:08";  
String str4 = "1927-12-31 23:54:09";  

Then ld4-ld3 will be 1.

Java version:

java version "1.6.0_22"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_22-b04)
Dynamic Code Evolution Client VM (build 0.2-b02-internal, 19.0-b04-internal, mixed mode)

Timezone(TimeZone.getDefault()):

sun.util.calendar.ZoneInfo[id="Asia/Shanghai",
offset=28800000,dstSavings=0,
useDaylight=false,
transitions=19,
lastRule=null]

Locale(Locale.getDefault()): zh_CN

Why is printing "B" dramatically slower than printing "#"?

I generated two matrices of 1000 x 1000:

First Matrix: O and #.
Second Matrix: O and B.

Using the following code, the first matrix took 8.52 seconds to complete:

Random r = new Random();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    for (int j = 0; j < 1000; j++) {
        if(r.nextInt(4) == 0) {
            System.out.print("O");
        } else {
            System.out.print("#");
        }
    }

   System.out.println("");
 }

With this code, the second matrix took 259.152 seconds to complete:

Random r = new Random();
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    for (int j = 0; j < 1000; j++) {
        if(r.nextInt(4) == 0) {
            System.out.print("O");
        } else {
            System.out.print("B"); //only line changed
        }
    }

    System.out.println("");
}

What is the reason behind the dramatically different run times?

As suggested in the comments, printing only System.out.print("#"); takes 7.8871 seconds, whereas System.out.print("B"); gives still printing....

As others who pointed out that it works for them normally, I tried Ideone.com for instance, and both pieces of code execute at the same speed.

Test Conditions:

• I ran this test from Netbeans 7.2, with the output into its console
• I used System.nanoTime() for measurements

Does finally always execute in Java?

I have a try/catch block with returns inside it. Will the finally block be called?

For example:

try {  
    something();  
    return success;  
}  
catch (Exception e) {   
    return failure;  
}  
finally {  
    System.out.println("i don't know if this will get printed out.");
}

I know I can just type this in an see what happens (which is what I'm about to do, actually) but when I googled for answers nothing came up, so I figured I'd throw this up as a question.

How to avoid Java code in JSP files?

I'm new to Java EE and I know that something like the following three lines

<%= x+1 %>
<%= request.getParameter("name") %>
<%! counter++; %>

is an old school way of coding and in JSP version 2 there exists a method to avoid Java code in JSP files. Can someone please tell me the alternative JSP 2 lines, and what this technique is called?

Generating random integers in a specific range

I am trying to generate a random intvalue with Java, but in a specific range.

For example:

My range is 5-10, meaning that 5 is the smallest possible value and 10 is the biggest. Any other number in between these numbers is possible to be a value, too.

In Java, there is a method random() in the Math class, which returns a double value between 0.0 and 1.0. In the class Random there is the method nextInt(int n), which returns a random int value in the range of 0 (inclusive) and n (exclusive). I couldn't find a method, which returns a random integer value between two numbers.

I have tried the following things, but I still have problems: (minimum and maximum are the smallest and biggest numbers).

Solution 1:

randomNum = minimum + (int)(Math.random() * maximum); 

Problem:

randomNum can be bigger than maximum.

Solution 2:

Random rn = new Random();
int n = maximum - minimum + 1;
int i = rn.nextInt() % n;
randomNum =  minimum + i;

Problem:

randomNum can be smaller than minimum.

How do I solve these problems?

I have tried also browsing through the archive and found:

• Expand a random range from 1–5 to 1–7
• Generate random numbers uniformly over an entire range

But I couldn't solve the problem.

Avoiding != null statements

The idiom I use the most when programming in Java is to test if object != null before I use it. This is to avoid a NullPointerException. I find the code very ugly, and it becomes unreadable.

Is there a good alternative to this?

I want to address the necessity to test every object if you want to access a field or method of this object. For example:

if (someobject != null) {
    someobject.doCalc();
}

In this case I will avoid a NullPointerException, and I don't know exactly if the object is null or not. These tests appear throughout my code as a consequence.

Why is processing a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?

Here is a piece of C++ code that seems very peculiar. For some strange reason, sorting the data miraculously makes the code almost six times faster.

#include <algorithm>
#include <ctime>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    // Generate data
    const unsigned arraySize = 32768;
    int data[arraySize];

    for (unsigned c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
        data[c] = std::rand() % 256;

    // !!! With this, the next loop runs faster
    std::sort(data, data + arraySize);

    // Test
    clock_t start = clock();
    long long sum = 0;

    for (unsigned i = 0; i < 100000; ++i)
    {
        // Primary loop
        for (unsigned c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
        {
            if (data[c] >= 128)
                sum += data[c];
        }
    }

    double elapsedTime = static_cast<double>(clock() - start) / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;

    std::cout << elapsedTime << std::endl;
    std::cout << "sum = " << sum << std::endl;
}

• Without std::sort(data, data + arraySize);, the code runs in 11.54 seconds.
• With the sorted data, the code runs in 1.93 seconds.

Initially, I thought this might be just a language or compiler anomaly. So I tried it in Java.

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Random;

public class Main
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        // Generate data
        int arraySize = 32768;
        int data[] = new int[arraySize];

        Random rnd = new Random(0);
        for (int c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
            data[c] = rnd.nextInt() % 256;

        // !!! With this, the next loop runs faster
        Arrays.sort(data);

        // Test
        long start = System.nanoTime();
        long sum = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i)
        {
            // Primary loop
            for (int c = 0; c < arraySize; ++c)
            {
                if (data[c] >= 128)
                    sum += data[c];
            }
        }

        System.out.println((System.nanoTime() - start) / 1000000000.0);
        System.out.println("sum = " + sum);
    }
}

With a somewhat similar, but less extreme result.

My first thought was that sorting brings the data into the cache, but my next thought was how silly that is, because the array was just generated.

• What is going on?
• Why is a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?
• The code is summing up some independent terms, and the order should not matter.

How can I test if an array contains a certain value?

I have a String[] with values like so:

public static final String[] VALUES = new String[] {"AB","BC","CD","AE"};

Given String s, is there a good way of testing whether VALUES contains s?

Differences between HashMap and Hashtable?

What are the differences between a HashMap and a Hashtable in Java?

Which is more efficient for non-threaded applications?