Post form to 3rd party website

Question

I have searched your forums, but not found what I need.
I am new to Java, and am battling to put together code to:
a) open a URL (e.g. www.google.com)
b) post data into a form (e.g. some keywords)
c) submit the form
Where can I find an example?

Answer 1

Have a look at the address bar after you do a google search...
eg. "java +java3d"
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=%2Bjava+%2Bjava3d&meta=
The servlet URL is "http://www.google.ie/search"
The first parameter is after the "?" separator.
Other parameters are separated by "&".
The text is URLEncoded.
So the psuedo vague code should be something like....
String mySearchParams = "java +java3d";
StringBuffer dynamicURL = new StringBuffer ( "http://www.google.ie/search?hl=" );
dynamicURL.append ( java.net.URLEncoder.encode ( mySearchParams ) );
dynamicURL.append ( "&meta=" );    // end of query string
URLConnection urlConn = new URLConnection ( dynamicURL );
urlConn.connect();
InputStream googleResultsStream = urlConn.getInputStream();
// now read the HTML that google returns...regards,
Owen