Java - connection to ServerSocket via browser/URL

Question

I'm writing a piece of software, and I'm under the restriction of not being able to use socket to connect to a java application using a ServerSocket.

I thought I'd try with an URL connection, since it's possible to define which port to connect to

e.g:

127.0.0.1:62666

I have my server app listening for connections and writing the input out to a jTextArea. When connecting to the server (127.0.0.1:62666) through a browser, it outputs:

GET / HTTP/1.1
GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1

I have another app for connecting to the ServerSocket through an URL connection:

try{
        URL url = new URL("http://127.0.0.1:62666");
        URLConnection connection = url.openConnection();
        connection.setDoOutput(true);
        connection.connect();
        PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(connection.getOutputStream());
        writer.print("Hello");
        System.out.println("should have worked");
        writer.flush();
        writer.close();
    }catch(IOException e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

It prints out the "should have worked" message fyi, but it never writes anything to the jTextArea of the server. The code for the server app looks like this:

try{

        ServerSocket serverSock = new ServerSocket(62666);

        while(doRun){
            Socket sock = serverSock.accept();
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(sock.getInputStream()));
            PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(sock.getOutputStream());

            InfoReader.gui.writeToTextArea(reader.readLine() + " From IP: " + sock.getInetAddress() + "\n");
            writer.println("Testing123");

            writer.close();

            reader.close();

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

Note: when connecting through the browser it displays the text "Testing123".

So I'm wondering how to do this the way I'm trying or perhaps read the URL that the ServerSocket was accessed through, so I could access it through a URL while passing it arguments (in the URL).

Hope this makes sense :)

Thanks, Mike.

Answer 1

There is one very good example:

public class SimpleHTTPServer {
    public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException {
        ServerSocket server = new ServerSocket(8080);
        while (true) {
            try (Socket socket = server.accept()) {
                Date today = new Date();
                String httpResponse = "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n\r\n" + today;
                socket.getOutputStream().write(httpResponse.getBytes("UTF-8"));
            }
        }
    }
}

Go to http://127.0.0.1:8080/ from browser and you'll get current date.