Can i display HTML

Question

Can i make this code display HTML, and how?
Examples and comments please. i need help
Simpletext Java Applet.
Applet displays a text file from the web in a text area.
The Text Area is as large as the APPLET Width and Height commands.
There is no animation
It loads quickly
And provides information that can be provided quickly.
Utilizes the following Params
<PARAM NAME = "filename" Value = "URL">
<PARAM NAME = "fontname" Value = "Fontname">
<PARAM NAME = "fontsize" Value = "Fontsize">
This is very useful for placing on a page where you want to have information
added without having to touch the HTML in the page.  It can also be placed into
a table.
import java.awt.*;
import java.io.DataInputStream;
import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
public class simpletext extends java.applet.Applet implements Runnable
  URL theURL;
  Thread runner;
  TextArea ta = new TextArea("Getting text...",7,70);
  public void init() {
    String fname = getParameter("fontname");
    String fsize = getParameter("fontsize");
    int fs = Integer.parseInt(fsize);
    Font tafont = new Font(fname,Font.PLAIN,fs);
    String url = getParameter("filename");
    try { this.theURL = new URL(url); }
    catch ( MalformedURLException e) {
      System.out.println("Bad URL: " + theURL);
  ta.setEditable(false);
  ta.setFont(tafont);
  setLayout(new BorderLayout());
    add("Center",ta);
//    string fnts = getFontList();//not yet implemented in Toolkit
  public void start() {
    if (runner == null) {
      runner = new Thread(this);
      runner.start();
  public void stop() {
    if (runner != null) {
      runner.stop();
      runner = null;
  public void run() {
    URLConnection conn = null;
    DataInputStream data = null;
    String line;
    StringBuffer buf = new StringBuffer();
    try {
      conn = this.theURL.openConnection();
      conn.connect();
      ta.setText("Connection opened...");
      data = new DataInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(
               conn.getInputStream()));
      ta.setText("Reading data...");
      while ((line = data.readLine()) != null) {
          buf.append(line + " HERE\n");
     ta.setText(buf.toString());
    catch (IOException e) {
      System.out.println("IO Error:" + e.getMessage());
}

Answer 1

Well now we are getting somewhere.
Yes your right it is a copy and paste job, i needed
somewhere to start and found that and thought it was
good.
I have been coding PHP/MySQL/HTML for years now so i
think i am ready to learn java.
PHP! Ick!
i have been following the tutorials at:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/getStarted/cup
ojava/index.html
and iv read up to:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/data/garb
agecollection.html
Well that's a good start.
The point of my applicvation:
To display realtime quotes (stock prices). or atleast
with 30 second updates.Ah-ha!
here is my PHP version:
http://www.fxdon.com/pgs/main_indices_frame.php
(which updates every 30 seconds)more Ah-ha!
>
and what i ment about security, is i didnt want to
"Hard-Code" SQL database details into this incase
someone somehow can decompile it.?This is a good reason. Also because then you don't have to open up the database to socket connections from anyone on the net.
I just thought it would be easier to have unix cron
update the database automatically and use php page to
fetch the updates and java to display it.
Also i cant make php page refresh automatically like
u can with java, i have to use some meta refresh
tags.Okay.
>
Am i on the wrong track?Yes.
What you need to do is basically implement a simple webservice. (This seems to be a popular topic today.)
The idea is that the data comes from your site through HTTP but it is not really a web page. It is some sort of data page.
Before I go further I am going to suggest something rather simple. A better model might use a webservice standard of some sort and return the data in an XML doc for example. You can read more about webservices in Java here http://java.sun.com/webservices/index.jsp
Now here is my example.
On the server have a php script like this.
<?php
/*I am assuming an open mysql connection here. Also that your GET
request variables are being parsed and are available for use*/
header("Content-type: text/plain");
if(!$sym){
  echo "FAIL\nNO SYMBOL\n";
}else{
  $rs = mysql_query("SELECT company,lastrade FROM stockprice WHERE symbol=".$sym);
  if($row = mysql_fetch_row($rs)){
    echo "OK\n";   
    echo $row[0]."\t";
    echo $row[1]."\t";
    echo "\n";
  }else{
    echo "FAIL\nUNKNOWN SYMBOL\n";
?>Then when you want to get the data from the applet you put in the url like this..
www.mysite.com/mystockpriceservice.php?sym=AAA
And the content returned will be a text file.
The first line will say OK if everything worked or FAIL if it didn't. If it fails then the second line tells you why.
If it does work then the second line will be a tab delimited string of all the values.
Then you can do as you want in the applet to display that data. As a ticker or whatever.
Do you see where I am going with this?
Like I said this implementation is rather simplistic but the basic idea is there.