How to send post request with x-www-form-urlencoded body

Question

How in java, can I send a request with x-www-form-urlencoded header. I don\

Answer 1

As you set application/x-www-form-urlencoded as content type so data sent must be like this format.

String urlParameters  = "param1=data1&param2=data2&param3=data3";

Sending part now is quite straightforward.

byte[] postData = urlParameters.getBytes( StandardCharsets.UTF_8 );
int postDataLength = postData.length;
String request = "<Url here>";
URL url = new URL( request );
HttpURLConnection conn= (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();           
conn.setDoOutput(true);
conn.setInstanceFollowRedirects(false);
conn.setRequestMethod("POST");
conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); 
conn.setRequestProperty("charset", "utf-8");
conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Length", Integer.toString(postDataLength ));
conn.setUseCaches(false);
try(DataOutputStream wr = new DataOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream())) {
   wr.write( postData );
}

Or you can create a generic method to build key value pattern which is required for application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

private String getDataString(HashMap<String, String> params) throws UnsupportedEncodingException{
    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
    boolean first = true;
    for(Map.Entry<String, String> entry : params.entrySet()){
        if (first)
            first = false;
        else
            result.append("&");    
        result.append(URLEncoder.encode(entry.getKey(), "UTF-8"));
        result.append("=");
        result.append(URLEncoder.encode(entry.getValue(), "UTF-8"));
    }    
    return result.toString();
}

Answer 2

For HttpEntity, the below answer works

HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_FORM_URLENCODED);

MultiValueMap<String, String> map= new LinkedMultiValueMap<String, String>();
map.add("email", "first.last@example.com");

HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, String>> request = new HttpEntity<MultiValueMap<String, String>>(map, headers);

ResponseEntity<String> response = restTemplate.postForEntity( url, request , String.class );

For reference: How to POST form data with Spring RestTemplate?