Apache httpclient GET file from local filesystem?

Question

I somehow always thought that this should be possible:

val client = HttpClients.createDefault()
val httpGet = new HttpGet("file:///Users/user01/testfile")
client.execute(httpGet)

which throws:

client: org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient = org.apache.http.impl.client.InternalHttpClient@4ba3987b
httpGet: org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet = GET file:///Users/user01/testfile HTTP/1.1
org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException: URI does not specify a valid host name: file:///Users/user01/testfile
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient.determineTarget(test_ws.sc0.tmp:90)
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient.execute(test_ws.sc0.tmp:78)
    at org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient.execute(test_ws.sc0.tmp:103)
    at #worksheet#.#worksheet#(test_ws.sc0.tmp:6)

which kind of makes sense as I am creating an HttpGet instance.

Does anybody know how this can be done?

I would say the **HTTP**client is designed to use the **HTTP** protocol, use other tools for other protocols (file, ftp, ...). — Jozef Chocholacek, Oct 21 '15 at 09:57
Maybe you want to use an URL with file:// [like this](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1485737/4136325) — Thomas Weller, Oct 21 '15 at 10:01
@JozefChocholacek Yeah I am just trying to get rid of some http calls to external systems and mock the responses by passing in files instead... i.e. I can only play with the URIs as the https calls are fired from an internal library and I only have access to the configs so can only pass in URIs — Todor Kolev, Oct 21 '15 at 10:01

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 21 '15 at 12:10

4

HttpClient is, surprisingly enough, is a client side HTTP transport library. It does not support any other transport protocols. Not even local file system. What you probably want is Apache Commons VFS or something similar.

answered Oct 21 '15 at 12:10

ok2c

26,450
5
63
71

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '19 at 08:54

HttpClient is really only for HTTP, but you can achieve the same with plain Java:

try (BufferedInputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(new URL("file:///tmp/test.in").openStream());
     FileOutputStream fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(new File("/tmp/test.out"))){
    byte dataBuffer[] = new byte[1024];
    int bytesRead;
    while ((bytesRead = in.read(dataBuffer, 0, 1024)) != -1) {
        fileOutputStream.write(dataBuffer, 0, bytesRead);
    }
} catch(IOException e){
    e.printStackTrace();
}

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 21 '15 at 10:50

-1

what about using the built-in java.net.URL class? That handles both http and file protocols.

answered Oct 21 '15 at 10:50

erosb

2,943
15
22

that doesn't work either... I can see that internally the httpclient is trying to extract the host so maybe after all it's not possible - target = URIUtils.extractHost(requestURI); – Todor Kolev Oct 21 '15 at 11:12
But I am sure I've done this in the past but maybe with some kind of a Spring wrapper: – Todor Kolev Oct 21 '15 at 11:13
this just ran properly for me: public static void main(String[] a) throws Exception { URL url = new URL("file:///tmp/foo"); InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader((InputStream) url.getContent(), Charset.defaultCharset()); BufferedReader buffReader = new BufferedReader(reader); String line; StringBuilder strBuilder = new StringBuilder(); while ((line = buffReader.readLine()) != null) { strBuilder.append(line); } System.out.println(strBuilder.toString()); } – erosb Oct 21 '15 at 11:26

Apache httpclient GET file from local filesystem?

3 Answers3