making REST request

Question

I am new to using REST and feel unconfident. So could you help and say what is the best approach to create a REST client to connect to server using SSL and authorization? I am not asking full example, just what library to use or maybe some native library?

Answer 1

You can use the built-in HttpURLConnection class to talk to a restful service. That class also supports https urls, which provide you with SSL encryption. For the authentication, you can use the built in mechanisms.

For Username+Password or Digest auth, you can just use the java.net.Authenticator, that you may need to extend like this:

public class AS7Authenticator extends Authenticator {

    private String user;
    private String pass;

    public AS7Authenticator(String user, String pass) {
        this.user = user;
        this.pass = pass;
        if (this.pass==null)
            this.pass=""; // prevent NPE later
    }

    @Override
    protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication() {
        return new PasswordAuthentication(user,pass.toCharArray());
    }
}

(taken from the JBossAS7 plugin of RHQ)

For Android versions > 2.3, the HttpUrlConnection seems to be the preferred client by the Android developers anyway.