Java - URLConnection getInputStream() Method

Description

The Java URLConnection getInputStream() method returns an input stream that reads from this open connection. A SocketTimeoutException can be thrown when reading from the returned input stream if the read timeout expires before data is available for read.

Declaration

Following is the declaration for java.net.URLConnection.getInputStream() method

public InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException

Parameters

Return Value

an input stream that reads from this open connection.

Exception

IOException − if an I/O error occurs while getting the content.

UnknownServiceException − if the protocol does not support the input.

Example 1

The following example shows the usage of Java URLConnection getInputStream() method for a valid url with https protocol. In this example, we're creating an instance of URL class. Using url.openConnection() method, we're getting the URLConnection instance. Using getInputStream(), we're getting the content of the home page of the website and printing the same −

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;

public class UrlConnectionDemo {
   public static void main(String [] args) {
      try {
         URL url = new URL("https://www.tutorialspoint.com/index.htm?language=en#j2se");
         URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection();

         BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
            new InputStreamReader(urlConnection.getInputStream()));
         String content = "";
         String current;
         while((current = in.readLine()) != null) {
            content += current;
         }
         System.out.println(content);
      } catch (IOException e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }
}

Let us compile and run the above program, this will produce the following result −

Output

<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head>	<title>Online Tutorials, Courses, and eBooks ....</body></html>

Example 2

The following example shows the usage of Java URLConnection getInputStream() method for a valid url with http protocol. In this example, we're creating an instance of URL class. Using url.openConnection() method, we're getting the URLConnection instance. Using getInputStream(), we're getting the content of the home page of the website and printing the same −

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;

public class UrlConnectionDemo {
   public static void main(String [] args) {
      try {
         URL url = new URL("http://www.tutorialspoint.com/index.htm?language=en#j2se");
         URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection();

         BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
            new InputStreamReader(urlConnection.getInputStream()));
         String content = "";
         String current;
         while((current = in.readLine()) != null) {
            content += current;
         }
         System.out.println(content);
      } catch (IOException e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }
}

Let us compile and run the above program, this will produce the following result −

Output

<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head>	<title>Online Tutorials, Courses, and eBooks ....</body></html>

Example 3

The following example shows the usage of Java URLConnection getInputStream() method for a valid url of google with http protocol. In this example, we're creating an instance of URL class. Using url.openConnection() method, we're getting the URLConnection instance. Using getInputStream(), we're getting the content of the home page of the website and printing the same −

package com.tutorialspoint;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;

public class UrlConnectionDemo {
   public static void main(String [] args) {
      try {
         URL url = new URL("http://www.google.com");
         URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection();

         BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
            new InputStreamReader(urlConnection.getInputStream()));
         String content = "";
         String current;
         while((current = in.readLine()) != null) {
            content += current;
         }
         System.out.println(content);
      } catch (IOException e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }
}

Let us compile and run the above program, this will produce the following result −

Output

<!doctype html><html itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/WebPage" ....</body></html>

java_urlconnection.htm