URLs, InetAddresses, and URLConnections

1
URLs, InetAddresses, and URLConnections

• High Level Network Programming
• Elliotte Rusty Harold
• elharo_at_metalab.unc.edu
• http//metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/slides/

2
We will learn how Java handles

• Internet Addresses
• URLs
• CGI
• URLConnection
• Content and Protocol handlers

3
I assume you

• Understand basic Java syntax and I/O
• Have a users view of the Internet
• No prior network programming experience

4
Applet Network Security Restrictions

• Applets may
• send data to the code base
• receive data from the code base
• Applets may not
• send data to hosts other than the code base
• receive data from hosts other than the code base

5
Some Background

• Hosts
• Internet Addresses
• Ports
• Protocols

6
Hosts

• Devices connected to the Internet are called
  hosts
• Most hosts are computers, but hosts also include
  routers, printers, fax machines, soda machines,
  bat houses, etc.

7
Internet addresses

• Every host on the Internet is identified by a
  unique, four-byte Internet Protocol (IP) address.
  
• This is written in dotted quad format like
  199.1.32.90 where each byte is an unsigned
  integer between 0 and 255.
• There are about four billion unique IP addresses,
  but they arent very efficiently allocated

8
Domain Name System (DNS)

• Numeric addresses are mapped to names like
  "www.blackstar.com" or "star.blackstar.com" by
  DNS.
• Each site runs domain name server software that
  translates names to IP addresses and vice versa
• DNS is a distributed system

9
The InetAddress Class

• The java.net.InetAddress class represents an IP
  address.
• It converts numeric addresses to host names and
  host names to numeric addresses.
• It is used by other network classes like Socket
  and ServerSocket to identify hosts

10
Creating InetAddresses

• There are no public InetAddress() constructors.
  Arbitrary addresses may not be created.
• All addresses that are created must be checked
  with DNS

11
The getByName() factory method

• public static InetAddress getByName(String host)
  throws UnknownHostException
• InetAddress utopia, duke
• try
• utopia InetAddress.getByName("utopia.poly.edu"
  )
• duke InetAddress.getByName("128.238.2.92")
• catch (UnknownHostException e)
• System.err.println(e)

12
Other ways to create InetAddress objects

• public static InetAddress getAllByName(String
  host) throws UnknownHostException
• public static InetAddress getLocalHost() throws
  UnknownHostException

13
Getter Methods

• public boolean isMulticastAddress()
• public String getHostName()
• public byte getAddress()
• public String getHostAddress()

14
Utility Methods

• public int hashCode()
• public boolean equals(Object o)
• public String toString()

15
Ports

• In general a host has only one Internet address
• This address is subdivided into 65,536 ports
• Ports are logical abstractions that allow one
  host to communicate simultaneously with many
  other hosts
• Many services run on well-known ports. For
  example, http tends to run on port 80

16
Protocols

• A protocol defines how two hosts talk to each
  other.
• The daytime protocol, RFC 867, specifies an ASCII
  representation for the time that's legible to
  humans.
• The time protocol, RFC 868, specifies a binary
  representation, for the time that's legible to
  computers.
• There are thousands of protocols, standard and
  non-standard

17
IETF RFCs

• Requests For Comment
• Document how much of the Internet works
• Various status levels from obsolete to required
  to informational
• TCP/IP, telnet, SMTP, MIME, HTTP, and more
• http//www.faqs.org/rfc/

18
W3C Standards

• IETF is based on rough consensus and running
  code
• W3C tries to run ahead of implementation
• IETF is an informal organization open to
  participation by anyone
• W3C is a vendor consortium open only to companies

19
W3C Standards

• HTTP
• HTML
• XML
• RDF
• MathML
• SMIL
• P3P

20
URLs

• A URL, short for "Uniform Resource Locator", is a
  way to unambiguously identify the location of a
  resource on the Internet.

21
Example URLs

• http//java.sun.com/
• file///Macintosh20HD/Java/Docs/JDK201.1.120doc
  s/api/java.net.InetAddress.html_top_
• http//www.macintouch.com80/newsrecent.shtml
• ftp//ftp.info.apple.com/pub/
• mailtoelharo_at_metalab.unc.edu
• telnet//utopia.poly.edu
• ftp//mp3mp3_at_138.247.121.6121000/c3a/stuff/mp3/
  
• http//elharo_at_java.oreilly.com/
• http//metalab.unc.edu/nywc/comps.phtml?categoryC
  horalWorks

22
The Pieces of a URL

• the protocol, aka scheme
• the authority
• user info
• user name
• password
• host name or address
• port
• the path, aka file
• the ref, aka section or anchor
• the query string

23
The java.net.URL class

• A URL object represents a URL.
• The URL class contains methods to
• create new URLs
• parse the different parts of a URL
• get an input stream from a URL so you can read
  data from a server
• get content from the server as a Java object

24
Content and Protocol Handlers

• Content and protocol handlers separate the data
  being downloaded from the the protocol used to
  download it.
• The protocol handler negotiates with the server
  and parses any headers. It gives the content
  handler only the actual data of the requested
  resource.
• The content handler translates those bytes into a
  Java object like an InputStream or ImageProducer.

25
Finding Protocol Handlers

• When the virtual machine creates a URL object, it
  looks for a protocol handler that understands the
  protocol part of the URL such as "http" or
  "mailto".
• If no such handler is found, the constructor
  throws a MalformedURLException.

26
Supported Protocols

• The exact protocols that Java supports vary from
  implementation to implementation though http and
  file are supported pretty much everywhere. Sun's
  JDK 1.1 understands ten
• file
• ftp
• gopher
• http
• mailto

• appletresource
• doc
• netdoc
• systemresource
• verbatim

27
URL Constructors

• There are four (six in 1.2) constructors in the
  java.net.URL class.
• public URL(String u) throws MalformedURLException
• public URL(String protocol, String host, String
  file) throws MalformedURLException
• public URL(String protocol, String host, int
  port, String file) throws MalformedURLException
• public URL(URL context, String url) throws
  MalformedURLException
• public URL(String protocol, String host, int
  port, String file, URLStreamHandler handler)
  throws MalformedURLException
• public URL(URL context, String url,
  URLStreamHandler handler) throws
  MalformedURLException

28
Constructing URL Objects

• An absolute URL like http//www.poly.edu/fall97/gr
  ad.htmlcs
• try
• URL u new
• URL("http//www.poly.edu/fall97/grad.htmlcs")
• catch (MalformedURLException e)

29
Constructing URL Objects in Pieces

• You can also construct the URL by passing its
  pieces to the constructor, like this
• URL u null
• try
• u new URL("http", "www.poly.edu",
  "/schedule/fall97/bgrad.htmlcs")
• catch (MalformedURLException e)

30
Including the Port

• URL u null
• try
• u new URL("http", "www.poly.edu", 8000,
  "/fall97/grad.htmlcs")
• catch (MalformedURLException e)

31
Relative URLs

• Many HTML files contain relative URLs.
• Consider the page http//metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/i
  ndex.html
• On this page a link to books.html" refers to
  http//metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/books.html.

32
Constructing Relative URLs

• The fourth constructor creates URLs relative to a
  given URL. For example,
• try
• URL u1 new URL("http//metalab.unc.edu/index.h
  tml")
• URL u2 new URL(u1, books.html")
• catch (MalformedURLException e)
• This is particularly useful when parsing HTML.

33
Parsing URLs

• The java.net.URL class has five methods to split
  a URL into its component parts. These are
• public String getProtocol()
• public String getHost()
• public int getPort()
• public String getFile()
• public String getRef()

34
For example,

• try
• URL u new URL("http//www.poly.edu/fall97/grad
  .htmlcs ")
• System.out.println("The protocol is "
  u.getProtocol())
• System.out.println("The host is "
  u.getHost())
• System.out.println("The port is "
  u.getPort())
• System.out.println("The file is "
  u.getFile())
• System.out.println("The anchor is "
  u.getRef())
• catch (MalformedURLException e)

35
Parsing URLs

• JDK 1.3 adds three more
• public String getAuthority()
• public String getUserInfo()
• public String getQuery()

36
Missing Pieces

• If a port is not explicitly specified in the URL
  it's set to -1. This means the default port is to
  be used.
• If the ref doesn't exist, it's just null, so
  watch out for NullPointerExceptions. Better yet,
  test to see that it's non-null before using it.
• If the file is left off completely, e.g.
  http//java.sun.com, then it's set to "/".

37
Reading Data from a URL

• The openStream() method connects to the server
  specified in the URL and returns an InputStream
  object fed by the data from that connection.
• public final InputStream openStream() throws
  IOException
• Any headers that precede the actual data are
  stripped off before the stream is opened.
• Network connections are less reliable and slower
  than files. Buffer with a BufferedReader or a
  BufferedInputStream.

38
Webcat

• import java.net.
• import java.io.
• public class Webcat
• public static void main(String args)
• for (int i 0 i lt args.length i)
• try
• URL u new URL(argsi)
• InputStream in u.openStream()
• InputStreamReader isr new
  InputStreamReader(in)
• BufferedReader br new BufferedReader(isr)
• String theLine
• while ((theLine br.readLine()) ! null)
• System.out.println(theLine)
• catch (IOException e) System.err.println(e
  )

39
The Bug in readLine()

• What readLine() does
• Sees a carriage return, waits to see if next
  character is a line feed before returning
• What readLine() should do
• Sees a carriage return, return, throw away next
  character if it's a linefeed

40
Webcat

• import java.net.
• import java.io.
• public class Webcat
• public static void main(String args)
• for (int i 0 i lt args.length i)
• try
• URL u new URL(argsi)
• InputStream in u.openStream()
• InputStreamReader isr new
  InputStreamReader(in)
• char c
• while ((c br.read()) ! -1)
• System.out.print(c)
• catch (IOException e) System.err.println(e
  )

41
CGI

• Common Gateway Interface
• A lot is written about writing server side CGI.
  Im going to show you client side CGI.
• Well need to explore HTTP a little deeper to do
  this

42
Normal web surfing uses these two steps

• The browser requests a page
• The server sends the page
• Data flows primarily from the server to the
  client.

43
Forms

• There are times when the server needs to get data
  from the client rather than the other way around.
  The common way to do this is with a form like
  this one

44
CGI

• The user types the requested data into the form
  and hits the submit button.
• The client browser then sends the data to the
  server using the Common Gateway Interface, CGI
  for short.
• CGI uses the HTTP protocol to transmit the data,
  either as part of the query string or as separate
  data following the MIME header.

45
GET and POST

• When the data is sent as a query string included
  with the file request, this is called CGI GET.
• When the data is sent as data attached to the
  request following the MIME header, this is called
  CGI POST

46
HTTP

• Web browsers communicate with web servers through
  a standard protocol known as HTTP, an acronym for
  HyperText Transfer Protocol.
• This protocol defines
• how a browser requests a file from a web server
• how a browser sends additional data along with
  the request (e.g. the data formats it can
  accept),
• how the server sends data back to the client
• response codes

47
A Typical HTTP Connection

• Client opens a socket to port 80 on the server.
• Client sends a GET request including the name and
  path of the file it wants and the version of the
  HTTP protocol it supports.
• The client sends a MIME header.
• The client sends a blank line.
• The server sends a MIME header
• The server sends the data in the file.
• The server closes the connection.

48
What the client sends to the server

• GET /javafaq/images/cup.gif
• Connection Keep-Alive
• User-Agent Mozilla/3.01 (Macintosh I PPC)
• Host www.oreilly.com80
• Accept image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg,
  /

49
MIME

• MIME is an acronym for "Multipurpose Internet
  Mail Extensions".
• an Internet standard defined in RFCs 2045 through
  2049
• originally intended for use with email messages,
  but has been been adopted for use in HTTP.

50
Browser Request MIME Header

• When the browser sends a request to a web server,
  it also sends a MIME header.
• MIME headers contain name-value pairs,
  essentially a name followed by a colon and a
  space, followed by a value.
• Connection Keep-Alive
• User-Agent Mozilla/3.01 (Macintosh I PPC)
• Host www.digitalthink.com80
• Accept image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg,
  image/pjpeg, /

51
Server Response MIME Header

• When a web server responds to a web browser it
  sends a MIME header along with the response that
  looks something like this
• Server Netscape-Enterprise/2.01
• Date Sat, 02 Aug 1997 075246 GMT
• Accept-ranges bytes
• Last-modified Tue, 29 Jul 1997 150646 GMT
• Content-length 2810
• Content-type text/html

52
Query Strings

• CGI GET data is sent in URL encoded query strings
• a query string is a set of namevalue pairs
  separated by ampersands
• AuthorSadie, JulieTitleWomen Composers
• separated from rest of URL by a question mark

53
URL Encoding

• Alphanumeric ASCII characters (a-z, A-Z, and 0-9)
  and the -_.!'(), punctuation symbols are left
  unchanged.
• The space character is converted into a plus sign
  ().
• Other characters (e.g. , , , , , , , and
  so on) are translated into a percent sign
  followed by the two hexadecimal digits
  corresponding to their numeric value.

54
For example,

• The comma is ASCII character 44 (decimal) or 2C
  (hex). Therefore if the comma appears as part of
  a URL it is encoded as 2C.
• The query string "AuthorSadie, JulieTitleWomen
  Composers" is encoded as
• AuthorSadie2CJulieTitleWomenComposers

55
The URLEncoder class

• The java.net.URLEncoder class contains a single
  static method which encodes strings in
  x-www-form-url-encoded format
• URLEncoder.encode(String s)

56
For example,

• String qs "AuthorSadie, JulieTitleWomen
  Composers"
• String eqs URLEncoder.encode(qs)
• System.out.println(eqs)
• This prints
• Author3dSadie2cJulie26Title3dWomenComposers

57

• String eqs "Author" URLEncoder.encode("Sadie,
  Julie")
• eqs ""
• eqs "Title"
• eqs URLEncoder.encode("Women Composers")
• This prints the properly encoded query string
• AuthorSadie2cJulieTitleWomenComposers

58
The URLDecoder class

• In Java 1.2 the java.net.URLDecoder class
  contains a single static method which decodes
  strings in x-www-form-url-encoded format
• URLEncoder.decode(String s)

59
GET URLs

• String eqs
• "Author" URLEncoder.encode("Sadie, Julie")
• eqs ""
• eqs "Title"
• eqs URLEncoder.encode("Women Composers")
• try
• URL u new URL("http//www.superbooks.com/sea
  rch.cgi?" eqs)
• InputStream in u.openStream()
• //...
• catch (IOException e) //...

60
URLConnections

• The java.net.URLConnection class is an abstract
  class that handles communication with different
  kinds of servers like ftp servers and web
  servers.
• Protocol specific subclasses of URLConnection
  handle different kinds of servers.
• By default, connections to HTTP URLs use the GET
  method.

61
URLConnections vs. URLs

• Can send output as well as read input
• Can post data to CGIs
• Can read headers from a connection

62
URLConnection five steps

• 1. The URL is constructed.
• 2. The URLs openConnection() method creates the
  URLConnection object.
• 3. The parameters for the connection and the
  request properties that the client sends to the
  server are set up.
• 4. The connect() method makes the connection to
  the server. (optional)
• 5. The response header information is read using
  getHeaderField().

63
I/O Across a URLConnection

• Data may be read from the connection in one of
  two ways
• raw by using the input stream returned by
  getInputStream()
• through a content handler with getContent().
• Data can be sent to the server using the output
  stream provided by getOutputStream().

64
For example,

• try
• URL u new URL("http//www.sd99.com/")
• URLConnection uc u.openConnection()
• uc.connect()
• InputStream in uc.getInputStream()
• // read the data...
• catch (IOException e) //...

65
Reading Header Data

• The getHeaderField(String name) method returns
  the string value of a named header field.
• Names are case-insensitive.
• If the requested field is not present, null is
  returned.
• String lm uc.getHeaderField("Last-modified")

66
getHeaderFieldKey()

• The keys of the header fields are returned by the
  getHeaderFieldKey(int n) method.
• The first field is 1.
• If a numbered key is not found, null is returned.
  
• You can use this in combination with
  getHeaderField() to loop through the complete
  header

67
For example

• String key null
• for (int i1 (key uc.getHeaderFieldKey(i))!nul
  l) i)
• System.out.println(key " "
  uc.getHeaderField(key))

68
getHeaderFieldInt() and getHeaderFieldDate()

• These are utility methods that read a named
  header and convert its value into an int and a
  long respectively.
• public int getHeaderFieldInt(String name, int
  default)
• public long getHeaderFieldDate(String name, long
  default)

69

• The long returned by getHeaderFieldDate() can be
  converted into a Date object using a Date()
  constructor like this
• String s uc.getHeaderFieldDate("Last-modified",
  0)
• Date lm new Date(s)

70
Six Convenience Methods

• These return the values of six particularly
  common header fields
• public int getContentLength()
• public String getContentType()
• public String getContentEncoding()
• public long getExpiration()
• public long getDate()
• public long getLastModified()

71

• try
• URL u new URL("http//www.sdexpo.com/")
• URLConnection uc u.openConnection()
• uc.connect()
• String keynull
• for (int n 1
• (keyuc.getHeaderFieldKey(n)) ! null
• n)
• System.out.println(key " "
  uc.getHeaderField(key))
• catch (IOException e)
• System.err.println(e)

72
Writing data to a URLConnection

• Similar to reading data from a URLConnection.
• First inform the URLConnection that you plan to
  use it for output
• Before getting the connection's input stream, get
  the connection's output stream and write to it.
• Commonly used to talk to CGIs that use the POST
  method

73
Eight Steps

• 1. Construct the URL.
• 2. Call the URLs openConnection() method to
  create the URLConnection object.
• 3. Pass true to the URLConnections setDoOutput()
  method
• 4. Create the data you want to send, preferably
  as a byte array.

74

• 5. Call getOutputStream() to get an output stream
  object.
• 6. Write the byte array calculated in step 5 onto
  the stream.
• 7. Close the output stream.
• 8. Call getInputStream() to get an input stream
  object. Read from it as usual.

75
POST CGIs

• A typical POST request to a CGI looks like this
• POST /cgi-bin/booksearch.pl HTTP/1.0
• Referer http//www.macfaq.com/sampleform.html
• User-Agent Mozilla/3.01 (Macintosh I PPC)
• Content-length 60
• Content-type text/x-www-form-urlencoded
• Host utopia.poly.edu56435
• usernameSadie2CJulierealnameWomenComposers

76
A POST request includes

• the POST line
• a MIME header which must include
• content type
• content length
• a blank line that signals the end of the MIME
  header
• the actual data of the form, encoded in
  x-www-form-urlencoded format.

77

• A URLConnection for an http URL will set up the
  request line and the MIME header for you as long
  as you set its doOutput field to true by invoking
  setDoOutput(true).
• If you also want to read from the connection, you
  should set doInput to true with setDoInput(true)
  too.

78
For example,

• URLConnection uc u.openConnection()
• uc.setDoOutput(true)
• uc.setDoInput(true)

79

• The request line and MIME header are sent as
  soon as the URLConnection connects. Then
  getOutputStream() returns an output stream on
  which you can write the x-www-form-urlencoded
  name-value pairs.

80
HttpURLConnection

• java.net.HttpURLConnection is an abstract
  subclass of URLConnection that provides some
  additional methods specific to the HTTP protocol.
  
• URL connection objects that are returned by an
  http URL will be instances of java.net.HttpURLConn
  ection.

81
Recall

• a typical HTTP response from a web server begins
  like this
• HTTP/1.0 200 OK
• Server Netscape-Enterprise/2.01
• Date Sat, 02 Aug 1997 075246 GMT
• Accept-ranges bytes
• Last-modified Tue, 29 Jul 1997 150646 GMT
• Content-length 2810
• Content-type text/html

82
Response Codes

• The getHeaderField() and getHeaderFieldKey()
  don't return the HTTP response code
• After you've connected, you can retrieve the
  numeric response code--200 in the above
  example--with the getResponseCode() method and
  the message associated with it--OK in the above
  example--with the getResponseMessage() method.

83
HTTP Protocols

• Java 1.0 only supports GET and POST requests to
  HTTP servers
• Java 1.1/1.2 supports GET, POST, HEAD, OPTIONS,
  PUT, DELETE, and TRACE.
• The protocol is chosen with the
  setRequestMethod(String method) method.
• A java.net.ProtocolException, a subclass of
  IOException, is thrown if an unknown protocol is
  specified.

84
getRequestMethod()

• The getRequestMethod() method returns the string
  form of the request method currently set for the
  URLConnection. GET is the default method.

85
disconnect()

• The disconnect() method of the HttpURLConnection
  class closes the connection to the web server.
• Needed for HTTP/1.1 Keep-alive

86
For example,

• try
• URL u new URL("http//www.amnesty.org/")
• HttpURLConnection huc (HttpURLConnection)
  u.openConnection()
• huc.setRequestMethod("PUT")
• huc.connect()
• OutputStream os huc.getOutputStream()
• int code huc.getResponseCode()
• if (code gt 200 lt 300)
• // put the data...
• huc.disconnect()
• catch (IOException e) //...

87
usingProxy

• The boolean usingProxy() method returns true if
  web connections are being funneled through a
  proxy server, false if they're not.

88
Redirect Instructions

• Most web servers can be configured to
  automatically redirect browsers to the new
  location of a page that's moved.
• To redirect browsers, a server sends a 300 level
  response and a Location header that specifies the
  new location of the requested page.

89

• GET /elharo/macfaq/index.html HTTP/1.0
• HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
• Date Mon, 04 Aug 1997 142127 GMT
• Server Apache/1.2b7
• Location http//www.macfaq.com/macfaq/index.html
• Connection close
• Content-type text/html
• ltHTMLgtltHEADgt
• ltTITLEgt302 Moved Temporarilylt/TITLEgt
• lt/HEADgtltBODYgt
• ltH1gtMoved Temporarilylt/H1gt
• The document has moved ltA HREF"http//www.macfaq.
  com/macfaq/index.html"gtherelt/Agt.ltPgt
• lt/BODYgtlt/HTMLgt

90

• HTML is returned for browsers that don't
  understand redirects, but most modern browsers do
  not display this and jump straight to the page
  specified in the Location header instead.
• Because redirects can change the site which a
  user is connecting without their knowledge so
  redirects are not arbitrarily followed by
  URLConnections.

91
Following Redirects

• HttpURLConnection.setFollowRedirects(true) method
  says that connections will follow redirect
  instructions from the web server.
• Untrusted applets are not allowed to set this.
• HttpURLConnection.getFollowRedirects() returns
  true if redirect requests are honored, false if
  they're not.

92
To Learn More

• Java Network Programming
• OReilly Associates, 1997
• ISBN 1-56592-227-1
• Java I/O
• OReilly Associates, 1999
• ISBN 1-56592-485-1
• Web Client Programming with Java
• http//www.digitalthink.com/catalog/cs/cs308/index
  .html

93
Questions?