You should be able to use HttpClient in Android to do what you need. I just finished the first part of an integration of Android with an ASP.NET MVC 3 site and I must say - it was quite painless. I use Json as my data exchange format.
You can view exactly what the header looks like by setting a debug point after building your request. Here is some sample code (please remember it is just sample code - not a full implementation).
This class is called by a separate thread than the UI thread:
public class RemoteDBAdapter {
public String register(String email, String password) throws Exception
{
RestClient c = new RestClient("http://myurl/Account/Register");
c.AddHeader("Accept", "application/json");
c.AddHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
c.AddParam("Email", email);
c.AddParam("Password", password);
c.Execute(RequestMethod.POST);
JSONObject key = new JSONObject(c.getResponse());
return key.getString("status");
}
}
Use this class to build your request and execute it:
public class RestClient {
public enum RequestMethod {
GET,
POST
}
private ArrayList <NameValuePair> params;
private ArrayList <NameValuePair> headers;
private String url;
private int responseCode;
private String message;
private String response;
public String getResponse() {
return response;
}
public String getErrorMessage() {
return message;
}
public int getResponseCode() {
return responseCode;
}
public RestClient(String url)
{
this.url = url;
params = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
headers = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
}
public void AddParam(String name, String value)
{
params.add(new BasicNameValuePair(name, value));
}
public void AddHeader(String name, String value)
{
headers.add(new BasicNameValuePair(name, value));
}
public void Execute(RequestMethod method) throws Exception
{
switch(method) {
case GET:
{
//add parameters
String combinedParams = "";
if(!params.isEmpty()){
combinedParams += "?";
for(NameValuePair p : params)
{
String paramString = p.getName() + "=" + URLEncoder.encode(p.getValue(),"UTF-8");
if(combinedParams.length() > 1)
{
combinedParams += "&" + paramString;
}
else
{
combinedParams += paramString;
}
}
}
HttpGet request = new HttpGet(url + combinedParams);
//add headers
for(NameValuePair h : headers)
{
request.addHeader(h.getName(), h.getValue());
}
executeRequest(request, url);
break;
}
case POST:
{
HttpPost request = new HttpPost(url);
//add headers
for(NameValuePair h : headers)
{
request.addHeader(h.getName(), h.getValue());
}
JSONObject jo = new JSONObject();
if(!params.isEmpty()){
for (int i = 0; i < params.size();i++)
{
jo.put(params.get(i).getName(),params.get(i).getValue());
}
StringEntity se = new StringEntity(jo.toString());
se.setContentType("text/xml");
se.setContentEncoding( new BasicHeader(HTTP.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json"));
request.setEntity(se);
//request.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(params, HTTP.UTF_8));
}
executeRequest(request, url);
break;
}
}
}
private void executeRequest(HttpUriRequest request, String url)
{
//HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpClient client = HttpClientFactory.getThreadSafeClient();
HttpResponse httpResponse;
try {
httpResponse = client.execute(request);
responseCode = httpResponse.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
message = httpResponse.getStatusLine().getReasonPhrase();
HttpEntity entity = httpResponse.getEntity();
if (entity != null) {
InputStream instream = entity.getContent();
response = convertStreamToString(instream);
// Closing the input stream will trigger connection release
instream.close();
}
} catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
client.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
client.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static String convertStreamToString(InputStream is) {
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String line = null;
try {
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
sb.append(line + "\n");
}
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
try {
is.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
return sb.toString();
}
}
EDIT:
Oh ya and the HttpClientFactory:
// Should be thread safe
public class HttpClientFactory {
private static DefaultHttpClient client;
public synchronized static DefaultHttpClient getThreadSafeClient() {
if (client != null)
return client;
client = new DefaultHttpClient();
ClientConnectionManager mgr = client.getConnectionManager();
HttpParams params = client.getParams();
client = new DefaultHttpClient(new ThreadSafeClientConnManager(params,
mgr.getSchemeRegistry()), params);
return client;
}
}
