Reading The Output From A POST To A Webserver

Question

Any suggestions on the following would be greatly appreciated!! From all examples, what I'm doing is correct, but I can't get the results of the Post.
I am trying to do the following:
1. Connect to a webserver through a URL object.
2. POST a user name and password to a login screen.
3. Read the Data Page that comes after login.
I have successfully done item 1, but am failing at either item 2 or 3.
I have read the forum extensively on Posting to webservers and have followed many examples. However my application does not get past the login screen. My application does not error, but the html that I read is the html of the Login Screen and not the html of the Data Page.
Here's my code:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
     public class HttpPostReader3 {
     StringBuffer lineBuff;
     public HttpPostReader3() {
lineBuff = new StringBuffer();
URL url;
HttpURLConnection connection=null;
String queryparam = "https://a_website/login.asp";
try
// Get URL
url = new URL(queryparam);
// Get a HttpURLConnection Object
connection = (HttpURLConnection)url.openConnection();
// prepare for both input and output
connection.setDoOutput(true);
// set request to post
connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
// Encode the URL POST String and assemble it
String postparameter = URLEncoder.encode("txtUserID") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("a_user_id");
postparameter += "&" + URLEncoder.encode("txtPassword") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("a_password");
postparameter += "&" + URLEncoder.encode("chkAutoLogin") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("Y");
postparameter += "&" + URLEncoder.encode("Login") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("Login");
// Create a outstream for posting the parameters and set the outstream to ASCII data
OutputStreamWriter outStream = new OutputStreamWriter(new BufferedOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream()),"ASCII");
outStream.write(postparameter); // POST occurs here for name value pairs
outStream.close();
// get output streams of connection
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( connection.getInputStream()));
String inputLine;
while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null)
     System.out.println(inputLine);
     lineBuff.append( "\n" );
     lineBuff.append( inputLine );
catch(IOException e)
System.out.println(e);
//WRITE OUTPUT HTML TO A TEXT FILE CALLED UNTITLED.TXT
               String htmlFile;
               htmlFile = lineBuff.toString();
          // Read and append data to a text file
          try{
          String fileName = "untitled.txt"; // Filename
          // Make the inputfile object
          FileInputStream fi = new FileInputStream(fileName);
          byte inData[] = new byte[fi.available()];
          fi.read(inData); // Read
          fi.close(); // Close
          String text = new String(inData); // Make a textstring...
          // Now, do whatever you want with the data... and append...
          String textToAppend = "xyzzzz";
          //byte outData[] = textToAppend.getBytes();
          byte outData[] = htmlFile.getBytes();
          // Make the outputfile (whith the 'append' boolean set to true
          FileOutputStream fo = new FileOutputStream(fileName,true);
          fo.write(outData);
          fo.close();
          }catch(Exception oops){
               System.out.println("error with untitled.txt");
               finally
                         System.exit(0);
          public static void main(String[] args)
                              HttpPostReader3 h = new HttpPostReader3();//constructor
} //End HTTPPostReader3

Answer 1

You are very wise, but I have thought of that. Login.asp creates an html page that has a <form> statement with a submit action (Post) to login.asp. I pulled this out of the html.
I did get lucky and found that for a bad login, the asp replies with "Bad Login". Since I know the login, I tried both the good login and a bad login. I found that I am posting correctly and logging in (at least my login is recognized as good and bad as bad).
However, I don't get the information of the next page (the next page does come from default.asp)!
WHAT DO I KNOW:
1. I am posting correctly.
2. My login was recognized as good.
3. I don't get the next page, which comes from default.asp. Note, you can't go to default.asp directly, it will send you back to login.asp.