load a variable to my android app from a URL

Question

This is probably really simple but I am very new to making apps, in fact this is my first attempt.

I want to know how I should go about writing the code for my app to go to my website, load a text file and store it as a variable.

I have a file "text.txt" and I upload it to here "http://my-test.com/app/" But I don't know how to make my app load the data from the text file as a variable that I can use. So I did some Google searches and looked on here.

This post: How to read text file in android from web? Is very relevant and I've tried to follow it and this is how far I've got

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.entity.BufferedHttpEntity;

HttpGet httppost = new HttpGet("http://my-test.com/app/text.txt");
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
HttpEntity ht = response.getEntity();
BufferedHttpEntity buf = new BufferedHttpEntity(ht);
InputStream is = buf.getContent();

BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
StringBuilder total = new StringBuilder();
String line;
while ((line = r.readLine()) != null) {
    total.append(line + "\n");
}

I don't know why but the program I'm using (eclipse) is giving me a light bulb and red cross of failure still and it kindly says "httpclient cannot be resolved" Does this need to be resolved? how do I resolve this? and will it work?

All the code

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.entity.BufferedHttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;

import com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubeBaseActivity;
import com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubeInitializationResult;
import com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubePlayer;
import com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubePlayerView;
import com.google.android.youtube.player.YouTubePlayer.Provider;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.Toast;
public class MainActivity extends YouTubeBaseActivity implements
YouTubePlayer.OnInitializedListener {

HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpGet httppost = new HttpGet("http://my-test.com/app/text.txt");
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
HttpEntity ht = response.getEntity();
BufferedHttpEntity buf = new BufferedHttpEntity(ht);
InputStream is = buf.getContent();

BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
StringBuilder total = new StringBuilder();
static String line = ""
while ((line = r.readLine()) != null) {
total.append(line + "\n");
}

static private final String DEVELOPER_KEY = "";
private static final String VIDEO = line;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    YouTubePlayerView youTubeView = (YouTubePlayerView)
findViewById(R.id.youtube_view);
    youTubeView.initialize(DEVELOPER_KEY, this);
}
@Override
public void onInitializationFailure(Provider provider,
YouTubeInitializationResult error) {
    Toast.makeText(this, "Oh no! "+error.toString(),
Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
@Override
public void onInitializationSuccess(Provider provider, YouTubePlayer player,
boolean wasRestored) {
player.loadVideo(VIDEO);
}
}

Answer 1

httpclient in your code HttpResponse response= httpclient.execute(httppost); hasn't been defined yet, so you will need to define this. I think looking at the code you will want to use the ApacheHttpClient, have a look at this Vogella tutorial here for more info (the line you want is HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient()

EDIT:

for your second question, all this code here

HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpGet httppost = new HttpGet("http://my-test.com/app/text.txt");
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
HttpEntity ht = response.getEntity();
BufferedHttpEntity buf = new BufferedHttpEntity(ht);
InputStream is = buf.getContent();

BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
StringBuilder total = new StringBuilder();
String line = ""
while ((line = r.readLine()) != null) {
    total.append(line + "\n");
}

should be inside a method call. At the moment this is called when the class is initialized, which means you will block the thread when httpclient.execute(httppost); is called. if you put it in side a new method, and then call that method from onResume() then you will have more luck, perhaps like this:

private String requestData(String url){
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpGet httppost = new HttpGet("http://my-test.com/app/text.txt");

    // this should be done in a background thread (or AsyncTask), but we'll leave it for now
    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost); 

    HttpEntity ht = response.getEntity();
    BufferedHttpEntity buf = new BufferedHttpEntity(ht);
    InputStream is = buf.getContent();

    BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
    StringBuilder total = new StringBuilder();
    String line = ""
    while ((line = r.readLine()) != null) {
        total.append(line + "\n");
    }

    // return the data we received to our caller
    return total.toString();
}