(Java) HTTP GET request keeps getting 400 response code despite the link working perfectly fine in browser

Question

I am trying to get a JSON response from Google Trends using HTTP. This is my code snippet:

public class TestClass {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{

    String address = "https://trends.google.com/trends/api/explore?hl=en-US&tz=240&req={\"comparisonItem\":[{\"keyword\":\"Miley\",\"geo\":\"US\",\"time\":\"2012-01-01 2014-01-01\"},{\"keyword\":\"Hannah Montana\",\"geo\":\"US\",\"time\":\"2012-01-01 2014-01-01\"}],\"category\":0,\"property\":\"\"}";

    URL url = new URL(address);

    HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

    con.setRequestMethod("GET");

    int responseCode = con.getResponseCode();

    System.out.println("URL is "+address);

    System.out.println("Response code is " + responseCode); }
}

This is the output:

URL is https://trends.google.com/trends/api/explore?hl=en-US&tz=240&req={"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":"Miley","geo":"US","time":"2012-01-01 2014-01-01"},{"keyword":"Hannah Montana","geo":"US","time":"2012-01-01 2014-01-01"}],"category":0,"property":""}

Response code is 400

If I type the URL directly in my browser, Google gives me a JSON file with no problem. However, if I try to access that URL using Java, I am given a bad request. How can I solve this problem? Thanks in advance.

Could you try not to back slash escape the double quotes in the url string? Try using single quotes and see what happens? — Daniel H.J., Oct 10 '17 at 02:24
If I'm reading this right, you're saying that when you're pasting the URL that your code outputs into the browser it opens? — bryce, Oct 10 '17 at 02:48

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 10 '17 at 03:00

3

You need to URL Encode the query string portion of your URL. Check out this question/answer for some ways to achieve this.

answered Oct 10 '17 at 03:00

Catchwa

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 25 '17 at 18:19

I solved your problem. I higly recomend http-request built on apache http api.

private static final HttpRequest<String> REQUEST =
        HttpRequestBuilder.createGet("https://trends.google.com/trends/api/explore", String.class)
                .addDefaultRequestParameter("hl", "en-US")
                .addDefaultRequestParameter("tz", "240")
                .responseDeserializer(ResponseDeserializer.ignorableDeserializer())
                .build();

public void send() {
    ResponseHandler<String> responseHandler = REQUEST.execute("req", "{\"comparisonItem\":[{\"keyword\":\"Miley\",\"geo\":\"US\",\"time\":\"2012-01-01 2014-01-01\"},{\"keyword\":\"Hannah Montana\",\"geo\":\"US\",\"time\":\"2012-01-01 2014-01-01\"}],\"category\":0,\"property\":\"\"}");
    System.out.println(responseHandler.getStatusCode());
    responseHandler.ifHasContent(System.out::println);
}

The code prints the response code 200 and response body which you get by browser.

(Java) HTTP GET request keeps getting 400 response code despite the link working perfectly fine in browser

2 Answers2