Why can't I read the content of my HttpUrlConnection?

Question

Hey all. I am having problems with the code below. I have run it through a tcp trace, so i know the responce I am getting from my
webservice i call.
The problem is, the Content Length http header in the webservice request is set to 0. There is a body in the request of the message.
When I try to do the input sream read, it always shows there is nothing in the unput stream! How can that be when there is a full responce in the body? Does the HttpUrlConnection just tell you there is nothing based on the Content Length header?
any help woule be very appreciated. Thanks!
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
String urlString = "http://SomeInternalUrlICantShowYou";
URL url = new URL(urlString);
HttpURLConnection huc = (HttpURLConnection)url.openConnection();
huc.setUseCaches(false);
huc.setRequestMethod("GET");
huc.connect();
System.out.println(huc.getContentLength());
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(huc.getInputStream()));
int i = in.read();
while(i!=-1) {
System.out.println((char)i);
i = in.read();
in.close();
huc.disconnect();
catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}

Answer 1

As I understand from your post that the remote server you are trying to access has the set the content-length in the header field as 0!!?? Seriously that I dont know how they did it. Might be when the reply is being send then they modify the response header.. That will be interesting to checkout how!! Anyways assuming that the Content-Length is 0 then below might be the possible explanation.
There is nothing wrong in your code. As per RFC 2068 (HTTP/1.1protocol)
section 14.14 Content-Length you will find that the applications SHOULD use this field to indicate the size of the message body to be transferred.
Hence the implementation of HttpURLConnection is that it creates a socket connection with the remote server and gets the Response Header. It reads the value of the COntent-Length field from the header. If the content-Length is ) then it assumens there is nothing more to read and hence reads nothing.
In your implementation you are using the input stream of the HttpURLConnection and not making a direct socket connection with the remote server.
It is due to this reason that when internally HttpURLConnection getrs the respose Header it fonds the value of the Content-Length as 0 and hence stops reading and consequntly your application also cannot read.
I Hope this answers your query.