How to perform a GET request on the json route in java

Question

I am trying to print to console the hobbies properties from this json https://coderbyte.com/api/challenges/json/rest-get-simple, but I am getting a runtime error..

This is the below code I have:

import java.util.*; 
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

class Main {  
  public static void main (String[] args) { 
    System.setProperty("http.agent", "Chrome");
    try { 
      URL url = new URL("https://coderbyte.com/api/challenges/json/rest-get-simple");
      try {
        URLConnection connection = url.openConnection();
        connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
        String line = "";
        InputStream inputStream = connection.getInputStream();
        BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(inputStream);
        StringBuilder response = new StringBuilder();
        while((line = bufferedReader.readLine()) != null) {
          response.append(line);
        }
        bufferedReader.close();
        System.out.println("Response: " + response.toString());
        System.out.println(inputStream);
      } catch (IOException ioEx) {
        System.out.println(ioEx);
      }
    } catch (MalformedURLException malEx) {
      System.out.println(malEx);
    }
  }   
}

error :

output logs will appear here

Main.java:12: error: cannot find symbol
        connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
                  ^
  symbol:   method setRequestMethod(String)
  location: variable connection of type URLConnection
1 error

Main.java:12: error: cannot find symbol
        connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
                  ^
  symbol:   method setRequestMethod(String)
  location: variable connection of type URLConnection
Main.java:15: error: incompatible types: InputStream cannot be converted to Reader
        BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(inputStream);
                                                           ^
Note: Some messages have been simplified; recompile with -Xdiags:verbose to get full output
2 errors

I just want to print the hobbies like running, coding, camping as an output..

If only there was some way to get more information when you get an exception at runtime. Like some exception message that could lead you towards a solution ... Well. ... — Joachim Sauer, May 18 '21 at 13:10

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered May 18 '21 at 13:19

setRequestMethod is a member of HttpURLConnection, not URLConnection.

For your particular case, that line is optional and can be removed. See: How to use java.net.URLConnection to fire and handle HTTP requests?

You'll also need to wrap your input stream (once you fix the first error, you'd run into this error):

BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));

The above changes are based on Java 11.

How to perform a GET request on the json route in java

1 Answers1