Android - Read Contents of TXT file from the Web

Question

Good afternoon all,

I'm having trouble reading the contents of a .txt file on my web server.

Below is my code that i have so far and i do have the internet permission in my manifest. i'm not sure what is wrong. i've tried following a lot of tutorials on how to read the contents of a .txt file on the web but none have been successful so far.

Code: songlistURL = "http://some.com/website/file.txt"; URL u = null;

try {
u = new URL(songlistURL);
HttpURLConnection c = (HttpURLConnection) u.openConnection();
c.setRequestMethod("GET");
c.connect();

InputStream in = c.getInputStream();
final ByteArrayOutputStream bo = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
in.read(buffer);
bo.write(buffer);
textFileStr = bo.toString();

   } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
   } catch (ProtocolException e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
   } catch (IOException e) {
       e.printStackTrace();
   }

Log.d("text file", "" + textFileStr);

I'm really tired so I may just be brain farting something, but I don't get the logcat error output either:

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.stillbent.staybent/com.stillbent.staybent.Samples}: android.os.NetworkOnMainThreadException
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2136)
at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2174)
at android.app.ActivityThread.access$700(ActivityThread.java:141)
at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1267)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5059)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:792)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:555)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
Caused by: android.os.NetworkOnMainThreadException
at android.os.StrictMode$AndroidBlockGuardPolicy.onNetwork(StrictMode.java:1131)
at java.net.InetAddress.lookupHostByName(InetAddress.java:385)
at java.net.InetAddress.getAllByNameImpl(InetAddress.java:236)
at java.net.InetAddress.getAllByName(InetAddress.java:214)
at libcore.net.http.HttpConnection.<init>(HttpConnection.java:70)
at libcore.net.http.HttpConnection.<init>(HttpConnection.java:50)
at libcore.net.http.HttpConnection$Address.connect(HttpConnection.java:340)
at libcore.net.http.HttpConnectionPool.get(HttpConnectionPool.java:87)
at libcore.net.http.HttpConnection.connect(HttpConnection.java:128)
at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.openSocketConnection(HttpEngine.java:315)
at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.connect(HttpEngine.java:310)
at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.sendSocketRequest(HttpEngine.java:289)
at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.sendRequest(HttpEngine.java:239)
at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.connect(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:80)
at com.stillbent.staybent.Samples.onCreate(Samples.java:61)
at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5058)
at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1079)
at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2100)
... 11 more

Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction possibly?

Thanks in advance, Nick

Also the code should capture the number of bytes read by by the read() method and use it for the write(). — NormR, Oct 05 '13 at 23:49

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 05 '13 at 22:16

1

You are getting a 'NetworkOnMainThreadException'.

You are not supposed to do any blocking operations on the main thread - this would block the processing of the UI.

You should put your networking code into an AsyncTask.

answered Oct 05 '13 at 22:16

Tom

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Thanks for the direction. I'm sorry I missed that in the logcat. I created a class file called "TextFromWeb.java" and moved all the above code to my new class file. To call it, i use: new TextFromWeb().execute(txt); and then to verify: Log.d("txt", "" + txt); And it seems to be pulling down the data expected. Thank you for the direction. – Nick Willcox Oct 05 '13 at 23:46

Android - Read Contents of TXT file from the Web

1 Answers1