How do I convert a web page to a String?
Author: Deron Eriksson
Description: This Java tutorial describes how to read a URL and convert it to a String.
Tutorial created using: Windows XP || JDK 1.5.0_09 || Eclipse Web Tools Platform 1.5.1


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The JavaSW URL class provides a convenient way of reading content from a URL. It is possible to open a connection to the URL, obtain an input stream, and then read that input stream. The input stream can be read into a StringBuffer, and this can be converted to a String. This technique is illustrated below.

ConvertUrlToString.java

package test;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;

public class ConvertUrlToString {

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		try {
			String webPage = "http://www.google.com";
			URL url = new URL(webPage);
			URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection();
			InputStream is = urlConnection.getInputStream();
			InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is);

			int numCharsRead;
			char[] charArray = new char[1024];
			StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
			while ((numCharsRead = isr.read(charArray)) > 0) {
				sb.append(charArray, 0, numCharsRead);
			}
			String result = sb.toString();

			System.out.println("*** BEGIN ***");
			System.out.println(result);
			System.out.println("*** END ***");
		} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (IOException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

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