How to use URL class instead of Socket

Question

Hi all. I am developing a small inventory control system for a warehouse.
I am suing a Java desktop application that connects to a servlet via Internet.
I have been searching the net how to use JSSE for my application since i am new to secure sockets and JSSE.
Since I havent implemented security In my current system yet, i am using URLConnection conn = url.openConnection(); to connect to a servlet.
However, in a good tutorial that I found about JSSE, sockets are used directly for connection, insted of URLCOnnection. They use the code like this: SSLSocketFactory sf = sslContext.getSocketFactory();
SSLSocket socket = (SSLSocket)sf.createSocket( host, port ); Since, using sockets is overly complex for me, I want to make use of the URLConnection class instead to keep it simple.
Could anyone please tell me how to make use of the URLConnection class to establish secure http connection.
by the way, the tutorial is here:
http://www.panix.com/~mito/articles/articles/jsse/j-jsse-ltr.pdf
thanks.

Answer 1

Here you go. The following code snippet allows you post data to http URL. If you have to do the same to https URL , please let me know.
OutputStream writeOut = null;
HttpURLConnection appConnection = null;
URL appUrlOpen = null;
//data to be posted.
String data = "This is the test message to post";
byte[] bytesData = this.data.getBytes();
appUrlOpen = new URL(""Your Servlet URL");
appConnection = (HttpURLConnection) appUrlOpen.openConnection();
appConnection.setDoOutput(true);
appConnection.setDoInput(true);
appConnection.setUseCaches(false);
appConnection.setInstanceFollowRedirects(false);
appConnection.setRequestMethod("post");
appConnection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/text");
appConnection.setRequestProperty("Content-length", String.valueOf(bytesData.length));
writeOut=appConnection.getOutputStream();
writeOut.write(bytesData);
writeOut.flush();
writeOut.close();
String inputLine;
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(appConnection.getInputStream()));
char chars[] = new char[1024];
int len = 0;
//Write chunks of characters to the StringBuffer
while ((len = reader.read(chars, 0, chars.length)) >= 0)
sb.append(chars, 0, len);
System.out.println("Response " + sb.toString());
reader.close();
sb=null;
chars = null;
responseBytes = null;
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