We've written some recipes that demonstrate how to solve common problems with OkHttp. Read through them to learn about how everything works together. Cut-and-paste these examples freely; that's what they're for.
Synchronous Get
Download a file, print its headers, and print its response body as a string.
The string() method on response body is convenient and efficient for small documents. But if the response body is large (greater than 1 MiB), avoid string() because it will load the entire document into memory. In that case, prefer to process the body as a stream.
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://publicobject.com/helloworld.txt")
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
Headers responseHeaders = response.headers();
for (int i = 0; i < responseHeaders.size(); i++) {
System.out.println(responseHeaders.name(i) + ": " + responseHeaders.value(i));
}
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
Asynchronous Get
Download a file on a worker thread, and get called back when the response is readable. The callback is made after the response headers are ready. Reading the response body may still block. OkHttp doesn't currently offer asynchronous APIs to receive a response body in parts.
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://publicobject.com/helloworld.txt")
.build();
client.newCall(request).enqueue(new Callback() {
@Override public void onFailure(Call call, IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
@Override public void onResponse(Call call, Response response) throws IOException {
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
Headers responseHeaders = response.headers();
for (int i = 0, size = responseHeaders.size(); i < size; i++) {
System.out.println(responseHeaders.name(i) + ": " + responseHeaders.value(i));
}
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
});
}
Accessing Headers
Typically HTTP headers work like a Map<String, String>: each field has one value or none. But some headers permit multiple values, like Guava's Multimap. For example, it's legal and common for an HTTP response to supply multiple Vary headers. OkHttp's APIs attempt to make both cases comfortable.
When writing request headers, use header(name, value) to set the only occurrence of name to value. If there are existing values, they will be removed before the new value is added. Use addHeader(name, value) to add a header without removing the headers already present.
When reading response a header, use header(name) to return the last occurrence of the named value. Usually this is also the only occurrence! If no value is present, header(name) will return null. To read all of a field's values as a list, use headers(name).
To visit all headers, use the Headers class which supports access by index.
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("https://api.github.com/repos/square/okhttp/issues")
.header("User-Agent", "OkHttp Headers.java")
.addHeader("Accept", "application/json; q=0.5")
.addHeader("Accept", "application/vnd.github.v3+json")
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println("Server: " + response.header("Server"));
System.out.println("Date: " + response.header("Date"));
System.out.println("Vary: " + response.headers("Vary"));
}
Posting a String
Use an HTTP POST to send a request body to a service. This example posts a markdown document to a web service that renders markdown as HTML. Because the entire request body is in memory simultaneously, avoid posting large (greater than 1 MiB) documents using this API.
public static final MediaType MEDIA_TYPE_MARKDOWN
= MediaType.parse("text/x-markdown; charset=utf-8");
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
String postBody = ""
+ "Releases\n"
+ "--------\n"
+ "\n"
+ " * _1.0_ May 6, 2013\n"
+ " * _1.1_ June 15, 2013\n"
+ " * _1.2_ August 11, 2013\n";
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("https://api.github.com/markdown/raw")
.post(RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_MARKDOWN, postBody))
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
Post Streaming
Here we POST a request body as a stream. The content of this request body is being generated as it's being written. This example streams directly into the Okio buffered sink. Your programs may prefer an OutputStream, which you can get from BufferedSink.outputStream().
public static final MediaType MEDIA_TYPE_MARKDOWN
= MediaType.parse("text/x-markdown; charset=utf-8");
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
RequestBody requestBody = new RequestBody() {
@Override public MediaType contentType() {
return MEDIA_TYPE_MARKDOWN;
}
@Override public void writeTo(BufferedSink sink) throws IOException {
sink.writeUtf8("Numbers\n");
sink.writeUtf8("-------\n");
for (int i = 2; i <= 997; i++) {
sink.writeUtf8(String.format(" * %s = %s\n", i, factor(i)));
}
}
private String factor(int n) {
for (int i = 2; i < n; i++) {
int x = n / i;
if (x * i == n) return factor(x) + " × " + i;
}
return Integer.toString(n);
}
};
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("https://api.github.com/markdown/raw")
.post(requestBody)
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
Posting a File
It's easy to use a file as a request body.
public static final MediaType MEDIA_TYPE_MARKDOWN
= MediaType.parse("text/x-markdown; charset=utf-8");
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
File file = new File("README.md");
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("https://api.github.com/markdown/raw")
.post(RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_MARKDOWN, file))
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
Posting form parameters
Use FormBody.Builder to build a request body that works like an HTML <form> tag. Names and values will be encoded using an HTML-compatible form URL encoding.
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
RequestBody formBody = new FormBody.Builder()
.add("search", "Jurassic Park")
.build();
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php")
.post(formBody)
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
Posting a multipart request
MultipartBody.Builder can build sophisticated request bodies compatible with HTML file upload forms. Each part of a multipart request body is itself a request body, and can define its own headers. If present, these headers should describe the part body, such as its Content-Disposition. The Content-Length and Content-Type headers are added automatically if they're available.
private static final String IMGUR_CLIENT_ID = "...";
private static final MediaType MEDIA_TYPE_PNG = MediaType.parse("image/png");
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
// Use the imgur image upload API as documented at https://api.imgur.com/endpoints/image
RequestBody requestBody = new MultipartBody.Builder()
.setType(MultipartBody.FORM)
.addFormDataPart("title", "Square Logo")
.addFormDataPart("image", "logo-square.png",
RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File("website/static/logo-square.png")))
.build();
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.header("Authorization", "Client-ID " + IMGUR_CLIENT_ID)
.url("https://api.imgur.com/3/image")
.post(requestBody)
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
Parse a JSON Response With Gson
Gson is a handy API for converting between JSON and Java objects. Here we're using it to decode a JSON response from a GitHub API.
Note that ResponseBody.charStream() uses the Content-Type response header to select which charset to use when decoding the response body. It defaults to UTF-8 if no charset is specified.
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
private final Gson gson = new Gson();
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("https://api.github.com/gists/c2a7c39532239ff261be")
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
Gist gist = gson.fromJson(response.body().charStream(), Gist.class);
for (Map.Entry<String, GistFile> entry : gist.files.entrySet()) {
System.out.println(entry.getKey());
System.out.println(entry.getValue().content);
}
}
static class Gist {
Map<String, GistFile> files;
}
static class GistFile {
String content;
}
Response Caching
To cache responses, you'll need a cache directory that you can read and write to, and a limit on the cache's size. The cache directory should be private, and untrusted applications should not be able to read its contents!
It is an error to have multiple caches accessing the same cache directory simultaneously. Most applications should call new OkHttpClient() exactly once, configure it with their cache, and use that same instance everywhere. Otherwise the two cache instances will stomp on each other, corrupt the response cache, and possibly crash your program.
Response caching uses HTTP headers for all configuration. You can add request headers like Cache-Control: max-stale=3600 and OkHttp's cache will honor them. Your webserver configures how long responses are cached with its own response headers, like Cache-Control: max-age=9600. There are cache headers to force a cached response, force a network response, or force the network response to be validated with a conditional GET.
private final OkHttpClient client;
public CacheResponse(File cacheDirectory) throws Exception {
int cacheSize = 10 * 1024 * 1024; // 10 MiB
Cache cache = new Cache(cacheDirectory, cacheSize);
client = new OkHttpClient.Builder()
.cache(cache)
.build();
}
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://publicobject.com/helloworld.txt")
.build();
Response response1 = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response1.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response1);
String response1Body = response1.body().string();
System.out.println("Response 1 response: " + response1);
System.out.println("Response 1 cache response: " + response1.cacheResponse());
System.out.println("Response 1 network response: " + response1.networkResponse());
Response response2 = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response2.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response2);
String response2Body = response2.body().string();
System.out.println("Response 2 response: " + response2);
System.out.println("Response 2 cache response: " + response2.cacheResponse());
System.out.println("Response 2 network response: " + response2.networkResponse());
System.out.println("Response 2 equals Response 1? " + response1Body.equals(response2Body));
}
To prevent a response from using the cache, use CacheControl.FORCE_NETWORK. To prevent it from using the network, use CacheControl.FORCE_CACHE. Be warned: if you use FORCE_CACHE and the response requires the network, OkHttp will return a 504 Unsatisfiable Request response.
Canceling a Call
Use Call.cancel() to stop an ongoing call immediately. If a thread is currently writing a request or reading a response, it will receive an IOException. Use this to conserve the network when a call is no longer necessary; for example when your user navigates away from an application. Both synchronous and asynchronous calls can be canceled.
private final ScheduledExecutorService executor = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://httpbin.org/delay/2") // This URL is served with a 2 second delay.
.build();
final long startNanos = System.nanoTime();
final Call call = client.newCall(request);
// Schedule a job to cancel the call in 1 second.
executor.schedule(new Runnable() {
@Override public void run() {
System.out.printf("%.2f Canceling call.%n", (System.nanoTime() - startNanos) / 1e9f);
call.cancel();
System.out.printf("%.2f Canceled call.%n", (System.nanoTime() - startNanos) / 1e9f);
}
}, 1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
try {
System.out.printf("%.2f Executing call.%n", (System.nanoTime() - startNanos) / 1e9f);
Response response = call.execute();
System.out.printf("%.2f Call was expected to fail, but completed: %s%n",
(System.nanoTime() - startNanos) / 1e9f, response);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.printf("%.2f Call failed as expected: %s%n",
(System.nanoTime() - startNanos) / 1e9f, e);
}
}
Timeouts
Use timeouts to fail a call when its peer is unreachable. Network partitions can be due to client connectivity problems, server availability problems, or anything between. OkHttp supports connect, read, and write timeouts.
private final OkHttpClient client;
public ConfigureTimeouts() throws Exception {
client = new OkHttpClient.Builder()
.connectTimeout(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
.writeTimeout(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
.readTimeout(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
.build();
}
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://httpbin.org/delay/2") // This URL is served with a 2 second delay.
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
System.out.println("Response completed: " + response);
}
Per-call Configuration
All the HTTP client configuration lives in OkHttpClient including proxy settings, timeouts, and caches. When you need to change the configuration of a single call, call OkHttpClient.newBuilder(). This returns a builder that shares the same connection pool, dispatcher, and configuration with the original client. In the example below, we make one request with a 500 ms timeout and another with a 3000 ms timeout.
private final OkHttpClient client = new OkHttpClient();
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://httpbin.org/delay/1") // This URL is served with a 1 second delay.
.build();
try {
// Copy to customize OkHttp for this request.
OkHttpClient copy = client.newBuilder()
.readTimeout(500, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
.build();
Response response = copy.newCall(request).execute();
System.out.println("Response 1 succeeded: " + response);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Response 1 failed: " + e);
}
try {
// Copy to customize OkHttp for this request.
OkHttpClient copy = client.newBuilder()
.readTimeout(3000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
.build();
Response response = copy.newCall(request).execute();
System.out.println("Response 2 succeeded: " + response);
} catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("Response 2 failed: " + e);
}
}
Handling authentication
OkHttp can automatically retry unauthenticated requests. When a response is 401 Not Authorized, an Authenticator is asked to supply credentials. Implementations should build a new request that includes the missing credentials. If no credentials are available, return null to skip the retry.
Use Response.challenges() to get the schemes and realms of any authentication challenges. When fulfilling a Basic challenge, use Credentials.basic(username, password) to encode the request header.
private final OkHttpClient client;
public Authenticate() {
client = new OkHttpClient.Builder()
.authenticator(new Authenticator() {
@Override public Request authenticate(Route route, Response response) throws IOException {
System.out.println("Authenticating for response: " + response);
System.out.println("Challenges: " + response.challenges());
String credential = Credentials.basic("jesse", "password1");
return response.request().newBuilder()
.header("Authorization", credential)
.build();
}
})
.build();
}
public void run() throws Exception {
Request request = new Request.Builder()
.url("http://publicobject.com/secrets/hellosecret.txt")
.build();
Response response = client.newCall(request).execute();
if (!response.isSuccessful()) throw new IOException("Unexpected code " + response);
System.out.println(response.body().string());
}
To avoid making many retries when authentication isn't working, you can return null to give up. For example, you may want to skip the retry when these exact credentials have already been attempted:
if (credential.equals(response.request().header("Authorization"))) {
return null; // If we already failed with these credentials, don't retry.
}
You may also skip the retry when you’ve hit an application-defined attempt limit:
if (responseCount(response) >= 3) {
return null; // If we've failed 3 times, give up.
}
This above code relies on this responseCount() method:
private int responseCount(Response response) {
int result = 1;
while ((response = response.priorResponse()) != null) {
result++;
}
return result;
}