how to send/POST JWT token from Android to Laravel backend

Question

i wanted to access my back-end using android phone. at this moment i want to do two things:

1. login the mob app after being authenticated from the Back-end.
2. Upload data to the back-end (back-end is PHP with Laravel Framework).

i first send email and password to the backend and gotten back a response of JWT token as shown:

"eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOjEsImlzcyI6Imh0dHA6XC9cLzE5Mi4xNjguMS4xMDI6ODAwMFwvYXBpXC92M1wvYXV0aGVudGljYXRlIiwiaWF0IjoxNDY2MDA5OTY3LCJleHAiOjE0NjYwMTM1NjcsImp0aSI6IjZjYjBlMTRjYTNkMjAzM2Q4OWM0NzM1M2ZjNjMzZTU2In0.GJGUjgy8U-uqjLSqJcysDTmgrNvxBHH03iBflLjsOwA"

Once the above token returned to the mob app, i want to send the same returned token for further post request, because the above jwt token is my key for accessing the back-end.

So my problem lies on sending the same token back to the back-end. it seems simple and stright forward since i have already started to communicate with my back end, and i have also checked my response by using post man.

and i can also got the user cridential using the jwt token on postman.

now the same token which works on postman is not working for my android. i know that my httpClient and httpPost are working since i have already send the email and password with it. i also know that my android post request is reaching the server since my returned result comes with an error message i built for an accepted token request, as shown below.

as you can see from the above snap shot. i first get the token inside a quotation (first highlighted), when posted for authentication. so i removed the quotation and posted the same token for getting user cridential but this time i got an error response which i built it on the Back-end.

so that is why i think my token is not going to the server properly. but i couldn't fix the problem. but i am guessing the token size is big, with a length of 490. so how shall i attach my token with the httpPost request? my code for the building the request is shown below:

public String getJsonString2(String url, String jwtString) {

        String jsonString = "";

        HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
        List nameValuePair = new ArrayList(1);
        nameValuePair.add(new BasicNameValuePair("token", jwtString));
        try {
            httpPost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePair));
        }
        catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            // writing error to Log
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        // Making HTTP Request
        try {
            HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
            jsonString = EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity(), HTTP.UTF_8);

        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            // writing exception to log
            e.printStackTrace();

        } catch (IOException e) {
            // writing exception to log
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return jsonString;

    }

i have also tried using MultipartEntityBuilder for parsing the parameter (token in my case) but the MultipartEnityBuilder library was crasshing my program when building:

the MultipartEnityBuilder library is added to my project using the following dependencies:

//for accessing the MultipartEntity lbrary
compile "org.apache.httpcomponents:httpcore:4.2.4"
compile "org.apache.httpcomponents:httpmime:4.3"

the error because of the MultipartEntity

So now my question is: how can i send the jwt token value from android to Laravel backend.

Answer 1

Perhaps try using MultipartEntity instead and create a "part" for the token. I have adapted this closely related answer to your case:

HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(url);
//here you create the token body    
MultipartEntityBuilder builder = MultipartEntityBuilder.create();
builder.addTextBody("token", jwtString, ContentType.TEXT_PLAIN);
HttpEntity reqEntity = builder.build();
httppost.setEntity(reqEntity);

HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
HttpEntity resEntity = response.getEntity();

I hope this helps, please give it a try and let me know.

You can visit this blog on Multipart Upload with HttpClient and learn more.

Answer 2

i have managed to solve my problem by simply setting the Authorization header with the token:

public String getJsonString2(String url, String jwtString) {

    String jsonString = "";

    // Creating HTTP client and post
    HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
    HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);

    httpPost.setHeader("Authorization", "Bearer \\{" +  jwtString + "\\}");

    // Making HTTP Request
    try {
        HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
        jsonString = EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity(), HTTP.UTF_8);
        System.out.println("Http String content: " + jsonString);
    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        // writing exception to log
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // writing exception to log
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return jsonString;
}