urlConnection.getInputStream() throwing EOFException

Question

I am executing the following code and always get an EOFException in urlConnection.getInputStream(). I know that the webserver is not returning proper headers, but if I use the same url in a web browser I get the expected content back.

URL url1;
try
{
    url1 = new URL("http://63.255.173.242/get_public_tbl.cgi?A=1");
    HttpURLConnection urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) url1.openConnection();
    try 
    {
        InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(urlConnection.getInputStream());
        readStream(in);
    }
    catch(Exception e)
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    finally
    {
        urlConnection.disconnect();
    }
}
catch (MalformedURLException e)
{
    e.printStackTrace();
}
catch (IOException e)
{
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Any ideas?

Edit 1:

I thought I was on to a possible solution. I found that using Android 2.3 I can read the response by calling getHeaderFields() (even though there is no header), but if I use Android 4.1 getHeaderFields() returns null. Any ideas?

url1 = new URL("http://63.255.173.242/get_public_tbl.cgi?A=1");
URLConnection urlConnection = url1.openConnection();
Map<String, List<String>> fields = urlConnection.getHeaderFields();

see also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2793150/how-to-use-java-net-urlconnection-to-fire-and-handle-http-requests — , Sep 11 '12 at 05:52
try this `http://127.0.0.1/` , you might need to add one `/` at the end. — Lucifer, Sep 11 '12 at 05:53
ckeck whether that file is empty or not?? or may be file is corrupt — Prachi, Sep 11 '12 at 05:58
You are using `urlConnection` to get inputstream where URL object is initialized as `conn `. Is this a typo ? — Santosh, Sep 11 '12 at 06:03
`getInputStream()` can't throw `EOFException` because it doesn't read content, just opens a stream. Exception is thrown later, when you're trying to read the content. Would be interesting to see that code. — yegor256, Sep 11 '12 at 06:16
The [javadoc](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/net/URLConnection.html#getInputStream%28%29) says this method will throw IOException - if an I/O error occurs while creating the input stream. No need to read the content. — randominstanceOfLivingThing, Sep 11 '12 at 06:24
connection.getInputStream() is throwing EOFException. EOFException is a subclass of IOException. It is strange that the Exception.StackTrace == null. I do not have my code with me, but will try to do a little more work in getting to the root of the issue later. — Kevin Westwood, Sep 11 '12 at 18:53
I tried urlConnection.connect(), but there are no differences in the results. — Kevin Westwood, Nov 03 '12 at 15:45

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 04 '12 at 01:53

As your server is not talking proper HTTP you cannot use URL.openConnection, but you can still access it using a plain socket connection to 63.255.173.242 port 80 and sending the strings:

GET /get_public_tbl.cgi?A=1 HTTP/1.0\r\n \r\n

and then reading the resulting stream.

Emil Davtyan · Answer 2 · 2012-11-04T01:50:09.660

Your server is not responding with any HTTP headers, try using getErrorStream.

emil$ curl -v http://63.255.173.242/get_public_tbl.cgi?A=1
* About to connect() to 63.255.173.242 port 80 (#0)
*   Trying 63.255.173.242... connected
* Connected to 63.255.173.242 (63.255.173.242) port 80 (#0)
> GET /get_public_tbl.cgi?A=1 HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.21.4 (universal-apple-darwin11.0) libcurl/7.21.4 OpenSSL/0.9.8r zlib/1.2.5
> Host: 63.255.173.242
> Accept: */*
> 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<record table="public" stationID="1" timestamp="19:49:40  11/03/2012" record_number="18372">
<value>
<name>SaveSite</name>
<data>0.00</data>
</value>
<value>
<name>Latitude</name>
<data>-111.00</data>
...

Exactly. The problem is the server cannot be changed. Do you have any ideas of how I can read the response when it is not sending back headers? On Android 2.3, I can use urlConnection.getHeaderFields() to get the actual response, but this does not work in Android 4.0 and above. — Kevin Westwood, Nov 04 '12 at 01:48

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 09 '13 at 02:54

Try reading the response like this:

BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
    response.getEntity().getContent(), "UTF-8"));

char[] buf = new char[1000];
int l = 0;
while (l >= 0) 
{
    builder.append(buf, 0, l);
    l = in.read(buf);
}

sample code for my get xml code class GetXMLTask.java

public class GetXMLTask
{
    public ArrayList<JSONObject> getOutputFromUrl(String url) 
    {
        ArrayList<JSONObject> output = new ArrayList<JSONObject>();
        HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
        HttpResponse response;
        StringBuilder builder= new StringBuilder();
        JSONObject myjson ;
        JSONArray the_json_array;
        try 
        {
            response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
            BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent(), "UTF-8"));
            char[] buf = new char[1000];
            int l = 0;
                while (l >= 0) 
                {
                    builder.append(buf, 0, l);
                    l = in.read(buf);
                }
            myjson = new JSONObject("{child:"+builder.toString()+"}");
            the_json_array = myjson.getJSONArray("child");
            //System.out.println("json array length()===>>>"+the_json_array.length());//shows no of child
            for (int i = 0; i < the_json_array.length(); i++) 
            {
                JSONObject another_json_object =  the_json_array.getJSONObject(i);//the_json_array.getJSONObject(i);
                //System.out.println("json object length()"+another_json_object.length());
                    output.add(another_json_object);
            }
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            System.out.println("ClientProtocolException :"+e);
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("IOException :"+e);
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            System.out.println("JSONException hussain :"+e);
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        //System.out.println(output);
        //System.out.println(output.toString());
        return output;
    }
}

i can provide u the example code but i will reach my working terminal only by tomorrow — Hussain Akhtar Wahid 'Ghouri', Nov 04 '12 at 03:28

urlConnection.getInputStream() throwing EOFException

3 Answers3