Jakarta Commons Cookbook

11.13. Handling Redirects

Problem

You need to access a server that may send an arbitrary number of redirects.

Solution

Before executing an HttpMethod call, setFollowRedirects(true) on the method; HttpClient will take care of following any redirects a server may return in a response. The following example shows what happens when a method requests a CGI script that returns a 302 (moved temporarily) response code:

               import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpException;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpMethod;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.GetMethod;

HttpClient client = new HttpClient( );
String url = "http://www.discursive.com/cgi-bin/jccook/redirect.cgi";
    
System.out.println( "Executing Method not following redirects: ");        
HttpMethod method = new GetMethod( url );
method.setFollowRedirects( false );
executeMethod(client, method);

System.out.println( "Executing Method following redirects: ");        
method = new GetMethod( url );
method.setFollowRedirects( true );
executeMethod(client, method);

private 
               static 
               void executeMethod(HttpClient client, HttpMethod method)
    throws IOException, HttpException {
    client.executeMethod( method );
    System.out.println( "Response Code: " + method.getStatusCode( ) );
    String response = method.getResponseBodyAsString( );
    System.out.println( response );
    method.releaseConnection( );
    method.recycle( );
}

This example executes two GetMethod instances; the first method is configured not to follow redirects, ...