What you see below in PHP and JAVA files are a complete (although simple) registration functionality. It all works.
The question now is,
How do I detect if the username field is already taken , and how do I let the java side know that so I can give the user a proper message.
ORIGINAL register.php:
<?php
define('HOST','X');
define('USER','X');
define('PASS','X');
define('DB','X');
$con = mysqli_connect(HOST,USER,PASS,DB);
 $name = $_POST['name'];
 $pass = $_POST['pass'];
  $sql = "insert into tbl_user (username,password) values ('$name','$pass')";
  if(mysqli_query($con,$sql)){
    echo 'success';
  }
  else{
    echo 'failure';
  }
  mysqli_close($con);
?>
Part of register.java:
private void insertToDatabase(String name, String pass) {
    class SendPostReqAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {
        @Override
        protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
            String name = params[0];
            String pass = params[1];
        List<NameValuePair> nameValuePairs = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
        nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("name", name));
        nameValuePairs.add(new BasicNameValuePair("pass", pass));
        boolean exists = false;
        try {
            HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
            HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(
                    "http://calisapp.esy.es/register.php");
            httpPost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nameValuePairs));
            HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpPost);
            HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        } catch (IOException e) {
        }
        return "";
    }
    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
        super.onPostExecute(result);
        Intent intent = new Intent(Register.this, MainActivity.class);
        startActivity(intent);
        Toast.makeText(Register.this, "Registered successfully", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        finish();
    }
}
SendPostReqAsyncTask sendPostReqAsyncTask = new SendPostReqAsyncTask();
sendPostReqAsyncTask.execute(name, pass);
}
