java - Cannot write output after reading input

Question

I'm writing a program that connects to a servlet thanks to a HttpURLConnection but I stuck while checking the url

public void connect (String method) throws Exception {

server = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection ();
server.setDoInput (true);
server.setDoOutput (true);
server.setUseCaches (false);
server.setRequestMethod (method);
server.setRequestProperty ("Content-Type", "application / xml");

server.connect ();

/*if (server.getResponseCode () == 200)
{
System.out.println ("Connection OK at the url:" + url);
System.out.println ("------------------------------------------- ------- ");
}
else
System.out.println ("Connection failed"); 

}*/

I got the error :

java.net.ProtocolException: Cannot write output after reading input.

if i check the url with the code in comments but it work perfectly without it unfortunately, I need to check the url so i think the problem comes from the getResponseCode method but i don t know how to resolve it

Thank you very much

Answer 1

The HTTP protocol is based on a request-response pattern: you send your request first and the server responds. Once the server responded, you can't send any more content, it wouldn't make sense. (How could the server give you a response code before it knows what is it you're trying to send?)

So when you call server.getResponseCode(), you effectively tell the server that your request has finished and it can process it. If you want to send more data, you have to start a new request.

Looking at your code you want to check whether the connection itself was successful, but there's no need for that: if the connection isn't successful, an Exception is thrown by server.connect(). But the outcome of a connection attempt isn't the same as the HTTP response code, which always comes after the server processed all your input.