Problem using setRequestProperty on a url connection, how can I fix it?

Question

From what I've read on it I thought I did everything the right way. I'm just starting out with the networking aspect of Java. What I'm trying to do is download only a portion of a file. For right now I'm just worried about downloading the end of a file starting from a value I enter manually. I read that I should use the setRequestProperty to set the start position of the file I'm download. For some reason it isn't working for me. It's still download the entire file. Can anyone give me some insight into what I'm doing wrong? I've commented what I think is happening in each line of the code, if someone could verify where I'm correct and where I'm wrong at that would be helpful too. Thank you.
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
public class FileDownload2 {
     public static void download() {
          OutputStream out = null;
          RandomAccessFile file = null;
          URLConnection conn = null;
          InputStream  in = null;
          try {
                        URL url = new URL(""); //create a new url
               conn = url.openConnection();//set url up to be opened
               conn.setRequestProperty("Range", "921600-"); // send a header-request
               in = conn.getInputStream(); //open the connection to the file
               byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];//create a buffer to hold bytes from the file
                out = new FileOutputStream("test");//create a new file to write the bytes to
               int numRead;
               long numWritten = 0;
               while ((numRead = in.read(buffer)) != -1) {
                    out.write(buffer, 0, numRead);
                    numWritten += numRead;//while there is still data read from the buffer and write the bytes to the file
          } catch (Exception exception) {
               exception.printStackTrace();
          } finally {
               try {
                    if (in != null) {
                         in.close();//close the inputstream
                    if (out != null) {
                         out.close();//close the file
               } catch (IOException ioe) {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
               download();//call method download
}Edited by: Secondtimearound on May 3, 2008 9:05 AM

Answer 1

Thanks! I ended up finding that on my own. I'll still give you the points if you want them because you gave the right answer. LOL I do have another question though. I only want to download part of a file and it seems to work fine with .mp3 files, I'm guessing because they were designed to play from any part of the file. However, when the program downloads only a part of a video file the video won't show. Sometimes the audio will still download that goes along with the video file. I read in another forum that the reason p2p programs can preview a video file is because they download the begining and end of the file. My question is, how can determine how much of the beginning and end of the file needs to be downloaded in order for the video file to play? I'm guessing there's some type of header file in the video but how to I download just that first? Then, I'm thinking I would have to use threads to download the different parts then combine them or something. I'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.