Reading client-posted data via Tomcat servlet

Question

Hi,
I'm doing some simple client/servlet communication using Tomcat, using POST's via an HttpURLConnection.
I'm seeing my data at the servlet side via getInputStream(), but I can't decode it to a String, even by using InputStreamReader (which is supposed to do that). If I send a 5 character String, at the servlet I see "^@^@^@^@^@". I've tried constructing a String from a byte[], but it doesn't decode, either.
I've tried writing the data as text with PrintWriter on the client side, and then reading text on the servlet side with getReader(), but getReader() returns null.
I'm beginning to wonder if the problem is within Tomcat itself.
Reading the docs and api's leads me to believe this should be very straightforward, but it's just not working.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!!

Answer 1

Here's the code... but there's been a strange twist:
(client side)
private void writeStringAsText(OutputStream outputStream, String content) throws UnsupportedEncodingException
PrintWriter printer = new PrintWriter(outputStream);
String encoded = URLEncoder.encode(content,"UTF-8");
System.err.println("asText is [" + content + "], encoded = [" + encoded + "]");
printer.println(encoded);
printer.flush();
printer.close();
Servlet side:
BufferedReader reader = request.getReader();
StringBuffer sBuf = new StringBuffer();
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null){
sBuf.append(line);
Yesterday the problem disappeared, but it reappeared today.
So, yesterday, the above code worked fine. Today I learned that
a call to reader.ready() (servlet side) returns false.
Does anyone know why a BufferedReader would return ready() == false??
(Other than what the Javadoc say)
Thanks in advance!