URLConnection vs FORM

Question

Hi ! I have a problem(...)
I am posting creditcardnumbers to a secure site using a form. Works fine, but when I'm trying to create the same URL using URLConnection it looks like the receiver can't handle the request.
This is the form :
<form action="https://MySecureServer:9443/cgi/script?" name="OrderForm">
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="Context" VALUE="IYIDjFqCA4g8TVNHKzYrU2ln+">
Cardnumber: <input name=va size=19 maxlength=19>
Month: <input name=vm size= 2 maxlength= 2>
Year: <input name=vy size= 2 maxlength= 2>
CVV2: <input name=vc size= 4 maxlength= 4> <br><br>
<input type="submit" name="Buy" value="Accept order">
</form>
It generates this URL :
https://MySecureServer:9443/cgi/script?BBSePay_transaction=IYIDjFqCA4g8TVNHKzYrU2ln%2B&va=4925000000000004&vm=04&vy=04&vc=&Buy=Accept+order
Which works fine !!!
Im trying this :
URL url = new URL("https://MySecureServer:9443/cgi/script?BBSePay_transaction=" + URLEncoder.encode(context) + "&va=" + URLEncoder.encode(cardNumber) + "&vm=" + URLEncoder.encode(cardMonth) + "&vy=" + URLEncoder.encode(cardYear) + "&vc=" + URLEncoder.encode(cardCv2));          
URLConnection con = url.openConnection();
con.setDoOutput(true);
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( con.getInputStream()) );
String newContext = in.readLine();
This is not working :-(
Anyone know what the problem might be ??
With regards, Thor-Arne Iversen
     

Answer 1

Um, no... If you call URLEncoder.encode() on the whole URL string, it'll encode the ? and & and other things as well, thus making the URL invalid. URLEncoder only encodes, it does no URL parsing of it's own, it doesn't care about the URL part itself. You'd just end up with this:
https%3A%2F%2FMySecureServer%3A9443%2Fcgi%2Fscript%3FBBSePay_transaction%3D...
Anyway, it's not working because you are forgetting a line...
URLConnection con = url.openConnection(); // only gives the URLConn object
con.setDoOutput(true); // not sure this is needed, but whatever
con.connect(); // *** Gotta connect or it won't call the server
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader( con.getInputStream()) );
String newContext = in.readLine();