implements
Serializable
Class
URL
represents a Uniform Resource
Locator, a pointer to a "resource" on the World
Wide Web. A resource can be something as simple as a file or a
directory, or it can be a reference to a more complicated object,
such as a query to a database or to a search engine. More
information on the types of URLs and their formats can be found at:
Types of URL
In general, a URL can be broken into several parts. Consider the
following example:
http://www.example.com/docs/resource1.html
The URL above indicates that the protocol to use is
http
(HyperText Transfer Protocol) and that the
information resides on a host machine named
www.example.com
. The information on that host
machine is named
/docs/resource1.html
. The exact
meaning of this name on the host machine is both protocol
dependent and host dependent. The information normally resides in
a file, but it could be generated on the fly. This component of
the URL is called the
path
component.
A URL can optionally specify a "port", which is the
port number to which the TCP connection is made on the remote host
machine. If the port is not specified, the default port for
the protocol is used instead. For example, the default port for
http
is
80
. An alternative port could be
specified as:
http://www.example.com:1080/docs/resource1.html
The syntax of
URL
is defined by
RFC 2396: Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax
, amended by
RFC 2732: Format for
Literal IPv6 Addresses in URLs
. The Literal IPv6 address format
also supports scope_ids. The syntax and usage of scope_ids is described
here
.
A URL may have appended to it a "fragment", also known
as a "ref" or a "reference". The fragment is indicated by the sharp
sign character "#" followed by more characters. For example,
http://java.sun.com/index.html#chapter1
This fragment is not technically part of the URL. Rather, it
indicates that after the specified resource is retrieved, the
application is specifically interested in that part of the
document that has the tag
chapter1
attached to it. The
meaning of a tag is resource specific.
An application can also specify a "relative URL",
which contains only enough information to reach the resource
relative to another URL. Relative URLs are frequently used within
HTML pages. For example, if the contents of the URL:
http://java.sun.com/index.html
contained within it the relative URL:
FAQ.html
it would be a shorthand for:
http://java.sun.com/FAQ.html
The relative URL need not specify all the components of a URL. If
the protocol, host name, or port number is missing, the value is
inherited from the fully specified URL. The file component must be
specified. The optional fragment is not inherited.
The URL class does not itself encode or decode any URL components
according to the escaping mechanism defined in RFC2396. It is the
responsibility of the caller to encode any fields, which need to be
escaped prior to calling URL, and also to decode any escaped fields,
that are returned from URL. Furthermore, because URL has no knowledge
of URL escaping, it does not recognise equivalence between the encoded
or decoded form of the same URL. For example, the two URLs:
http://foo.com/hello world/ and http://foo.com/hello%20world
would be considered not equal to each other.
Note, the
URI
class does perform escaping of its
component fields in certain circumstances. The recommended way
to manage the encoding and decoding of URLs is to use
URI
,
and to convert between these two classes using
toURI()
and
URI.toURL()
.
The
URLEncoder
and
URLDecoder
classes can also be
used, but only for HTML form encoding, which is not the same
as the encoding scheme defined in RFC2396.
-
Since:
-
JDK1.0
-
See Also:
-
Serialized Form
String
spec,
URLStreamHandler
handler)
Creates a URL by parsing the given spec with the specified handler
within a specified context.
openConnection
()
Returns a
URLConnection
instance that
represents a connection to the remote object referred to by the
URL
.
URLConnection
openConnection
(
Proxy
proxy)
Same as
openConnection()
, except that the connection will be
made through the specified proxy; Protocol handlers that do not
support proxing will ignore the proxy parameter and make a
normal connection.
InputStream
openStream
()
Opens a connection to this
URL
and returns an
InputStream
for reading from that connection.
boolean
sameFile
(
URL
other)
Compares two URLs, excluding the fragment component.
protected void
set
(
String
protocol,
String
host,
int port,
String
file,
String
ref)
Sets the fields of the URL.
protected void
set
(
String
protocol,
String
host,
int port,
String
authority,
String
userInfo,
String
path,
String
query,
String
ref)
Sets the specified 8 fields of the URL.
static void
setURLStreamHandlerFactory
(
URLStreamHandlerFactory
fac)
Sets an application's
URLStreamHandlerFactory
.
String
toExternalForm
()
Constructs a string representation of this
URL
.
String
toString
()
Constructs a string representation of this
URL
.
toURI
()
Returns a
URI
equivalent to this URL.
throws
MalformedURLException
Creates a
URL
object from the specified
protocol
,
host
,
port
number, and
file
.
host
can be expressed as a host name or a literal
IP address. If IPv6 literal address is used, it should be
enclosed in square brackets (
'['
and
']'
), as
specified by
RFC 2732
;
However, the literal IPv6 address format defined in
RFC 2373: IP
Version 6 Addressing Architecture
is also accepted.
Specifying a
port
number of
-1
indicates that the URL should use the default port for the
protocol.
If this is the first URL object being created with the specified
protocol, a
stream protocol handler
object, an instance of
class
URLStreamHandler
, is created for that protocol:
If the application has previously set up an instance of
URLStreamHandlerFactory
as the stream handler factory,
then the
createURLStreamHandler
method of that instance
is called with the protocol string as an argument to create the
stream protocol handler.
If no
URLStreamHandlerFactory
has yet been set up,
or if the factory's
createURLStreamHandler
method
returns
null
, then the constructor finds the
value of the system property:
java.protocol.handler.pkgs
If the value of that system property is not
null
,
it is interpreted as a list of packages separated by a vertical
slash character '
|
'. The constructor tries to load
the class named:
<
package
>.<
protocol
>.Handler
where <
package
> is replaced by the name of the package
and <
protocol
> is replaced by the name of the protocol.
If this class does not exist, or if the class exists but it is not
a subclass of
URLStreamHandler
, then the next package
in the list is tried.
If the previous step fails to find a protocol handler, then the
constructor tries to load from a system default package.
<
system default package
>.<
protocol
>.Handler
If this class does not exist, or if the class exists but it is not a
subclass of
URLStreamHandler
, then a
MalformedURLException
is thrown.
Protocol handlers for the following protocols are guaranteed
to exist on the search path :-
http, https, ftp, file, and jar
Protocol handlers for additional protocols may also be
available.
No validation of the inputs is performed by this constructor.
-
Parameters:
-
protocol
- the name of the protocol to use.
-
host
- the name of the host.
-
port
- the port number on the host.
-
file
- the file on the host
-
Throws:
-
MalformedURLException
- if an unknown protocol is specified.
-
See Also:
-
System.getProperty(java.lang.String)
,
setURLStreamHandlerFactory(
java.net.URLStreamHandlerFactory)
,
URLStreamHandler
,
URLStreamHandlerFactory.createURLStreamHandler(
java.lang.String)
throws
MalformedURLException
Creates a URL from the specified
protocol
name,
host
name, and
file
name. The
default port for the specified protocol is used.
This method is equivalent to calling the four-argument
constructor with the arguments being
protocol
,
host
,
-1
, and
file
.
No validation of the inputs is performed by this constructor.
-
Parameters:
-
protocol
- the name of the protocol to use.
-
host
- the name of the host.
-
file
- the file on the host.
-
Throws:
-
MalformedURLException
- if an unknown protocol is specified.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
URLStreamHandler
handler)
throws
MalformedURLException
Creates a
URL
object from the specified
protocol
,
host
,
port
number,
file
, and
handler
. Specifying
a
port
number of
-1
indicates that
the URL should use the default port for the protocol. Specifying
a
handler
of
null
indicates that the URL
should use a default stream handler for the protocol, as outlined
java.net.URL#URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String, int,
java.lang.String)
If the handler is not null and there is a security manager,
the security manager's
checkPermission
method is called with a
NetPermission("specifyStreamHandler")
permission.
This may result in a SecurityException.
No validation of the inputs is performed by this constructor.
-
Parameters:
-
protocol
- the name of the protocol to use.
-
host
- the name of the host.
-
port
- the port number on the host.
-
file
- the file on the host
-
handler
- the stream handler for the URL.
-
Throws:
-
MalformedURLException
- if an unknown protocol is specified.
-
SecurityException
- if a security manager exists and its
checkPermission
method doesn't allow
specifying a stream handler explicitly.
-
See Also:
-
System.getProperty(java.lang.String)
,
setURLStreamHandlerFactory(
java.net.URLStreamHandlerFactory)
,
URLStreamHandler
,
URLStreamHandlerFactory.createURLStreamHandler(
java.lang.String)
,
SecurityManager.checkPermission(java.security.Permission)
,
NetPermission
public URL(String spec)
throws MalformedURLException
Creates a
URL
object from the
String
representation.
This constructor is equivalent to a call to the two-argument
constructor with a
null
first argument.
-
Parameters:
-
spec
- the
String
to parse as a URL.
-
Throws:
-
MalformedURLException
- if no protocol is specified, or an
unknown protocol is found, or
spec
is
null
.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.net.URL, java.lang.String)
String
spec)
throws
MalformedURLException
Creates a URL by parsing the given spec within a specified context.
The new URL is created from the given context URL and the spec
argument as described in
RFC2396 "Uniform Resource Identifiers : Generic * Syntax" :
<scheme>://<authority><path>?<query>#<fragment>
The reference is parsed into the scheme, authority, path, query and
fragment parts. If the path component is empty and the scheme,
authority, and query components are undefined, then the new URL is a
reference to the current document. Otherwise, the fragment and query
parts present in the spec are used in the new URL.
If the scheme component is defined in the given spec and does not match
the scheme of the context, then the new URL is created as an absolute
URL based on the spec alone. Otherwise the scheme component is inherited
from the context URL.
If the authority component is present in the spec then the spec is
treated as absolute and the spec authority and path will replace the
context authority and path. If the authority component is absent in the
spec then the authority of the new URL will be inherited from the
context.
If the spec's path component begins with a slash character
"/" then the
path is treated as absolute and the spec path replaces the context path.
Otherwise, the path is treated as a relative path and is appended to the
context path, as described in RFC2396. Also, in this case,
the path is canonicalized through the removal of directory
changes made by occurences of ".." and ".".
For a more detailed description of URL parsing, refer to RFC2396.
-
Parameters:
-
context
- the context in which to parse the specification.
-
spec
- the
String
to parse as a URL.
-
Throws:
-
MalformedURLException
- if no protocol is specified, or an
unknown protocol is found, or
spec
is
null
.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
,
URLStreamHandler
,
URLStreamHandler.parseURL(java.net.URL,
java.lang.String, int, int)
URLStreamHandler
handler)
throws
MalformedURLException
Creates a URL by parsing the given spec with the specified handler
within a specified context. If the handler is null, the parsing
occurs as with the two argument constructor.
-
Parameters:
-
context
- the context in which to parse the specification.
-
spec
- the
String
to parse as a URL.
-
handler
- the stream handler for the URL.
-
Throws:
-
MalformedURLException
- if no protocol is specified, or an
unknown protocol is found, or
spec
is
null
.
-
SecurityException
- if a security manager exists and its
checkPermission
method doesn't allow
specifying a stream handler.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
,
URLStreamHandler
,
URLStreamHandler.parseURL(java.net.URL,
java.lang.String, int, int)
String
ref)
Sets the fields of the URL. This is not a public method so that
only URLStreamHandlers can modify URL fields. URLs are
otherwise constant.
-
Parameters:
-
protocol
- the name of the protocol to use
-
host
- the name of the host
-
port
- the port number on the host
-
file
- the file on the host
-
ref
- the internal reference in the URL
String
query,
String
ref)
Sets the specified 8 fields of the URL. This is not a public method so
that only URLStreamHandlers can modify URL fields. URLs are otherwise
constant.
-
Parameters:
-
protocol
- the name of the protocol to use
-
host
- the name of the host
-
port
- the port number on the host
-
authority
- the authority part for the url
-
userInfo
- the username and password
-
path
- the file on the host
-
ref
- the internal reference in the URL
-
query
- the query part of this URL
-
Since:
public String getQuery()
Gets the query part of this
URL
.
-
Returns:
-
the query part of this
URL
,
or
null
if one does not exist
-
Since:
public String getPath()
Gets the path part of this
URL
.
-
Returns:
-
the path part of this
URL
, or an
empty string if one does not exist
-
Since:
public String getUserInfo()
Gets the userInfo part of this
URL
.
-
Returns:
-
the userInfo part of this
URL
, or
null
if one does not exist
-
Since:
public String getAuthority()
Gets the authority part of this
URL
.
-
Returns:
-
the authority part of this
URL
-
Since:
getDefaultPort
public int getDefaultPort()
Gets the default port number of the protocol associated
with this
URL
. If the URL scheme or the URLStreamHandler
for the URL do not define a default port number,
then -1 is returned.
-
Returns:
-
the port number
-
Since:
public String getHost()
Gets the host name of this
URL
, if applicable.
The format of the host conforms to RFC 2732, i.e. for a
literal IPv6 address, this method will return the IPv6 address
enclosed in square brackets (
'['
and
']'
).
-
Returns:
-
the host name of this
URL
.
public String getFile()
Gets the file name of this
URL
.
The returned file portion will be
the same as
getPath()
, plus the concatenation of
the value of
getQuery()
, if any. If there is
no query portion, this method and
getPath()
will
return identical results.
-
Returns:
-
the file name of this
URL
,
or an empty string if one does not exist
Gets the anchor (also known as the "reference") of this
URL
.
-
Returns:
-
the anchor (also known as the "reference") of this
URL
, or
null
if one does not exist
equals
public boolean equals(Object obj)
Compares this URL for equality with another object.
If the given object is not a URL then this method immediately returns
false
.
Two URL objects are equal if they have the same protocol, reference
equivalent hosts, have the same port number on the host, and the same
file and fragment of the file.
Two hosts are considered equivalent if both host names can be resolved
into the same IP addresses; else if either host name can't be
resolved, the host names must be equal without regard to case; or both
host names equal to null.
Since hosts comparison requires name resolution, this operation is a
blocking operation.
Note: The defined behavior for
equals
is known to
be inconsistent with virtual hosting in HTTP.
-
Overrides:
-
equals
in class
Object
-
Parameters:
-
obj
- the URL to compare against.
-
Returns:
-
true
if the objects are the same;
false
otherwise.
-
See Also:
-
Object.hashCode()
,
HashMap
Creates an integer suitable for hash table indexing.
The hash code is based upon all the URL components relevant for URL
comparison. As such, this operation is a blocking operation.
-
Overrides:
-
hashCode
in class
Object
-
Returns:
-
a hash code for this
URL
.
-
See Also:
-
Object.equals(java.lang.Object)
,
System.identityHashCode(java.lang.Object)
sameFile
public boolean sameFile(URL other)
Compares two URLs, excluding the fragment component.
Returns
true
if this
URL
and the
other
argument are equal without taking the
fragment component into consideration.
-
Parameters:
-
other
- the
URL
to compare against.
-
Returns:
-
true
if they reference the same remote object;
false
otherwise.
public String toString()
Constructs a string representation of this
URL
. The
string is created by calling the
toExternalForm
method of the stream protocol handler for this object.
-
Overrides:
-
toString
in class
Object
-
Returns:
-
a string representation of this object.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String, int,
java.lang.String)
,
URLStreamHandler.toExternalForm(java.net.URL)
toExternalForm
public String toExternalForm()
Constructs a string representation of this
URL
. The
string is created by calling the
toExternalForm
method of the stream protocol handler for this object.
-
Returns:
-
a string representation of this object.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
,
URLStreamHandler.toExternalForm(java.net.URL)
throws
URISyntaxException
Returns a
URI
equivalent to this URL.
This method functions in the same way as
new URI (this.toString())
.
Note, any URL instance that complies with RFC 2396 can be converted
to a URI. However, some URLs that are not strictly in compliance
can not be converted to a URI.
-
Returns:
-
a URI instance equivalent to this URL.
-
Throws:
-
URISyntaxException
- if this URL is not formatted strictly according to
to RFC2396 and cannot be converted to a URI.
-
Since:
public URLConnection openConnection()
throws IOException
Returns a
URLConnection
instance that
represents a connection to the remote object referred to by the
URL
.
A new instance of
URLConnection
is
created every time when invoking the
URLStreamHandler.openConnection(URL)
method of the protocol handler for
this URL.
It should be noted that a URLConnection instance does not establish
the actual network connection on creation. This will happen only when
calling
URLConnection.connect()
.
If for the URL's protocol (such as HTTP or JAR), there
exists a public, specialized URLConnection subclass belonging
to one of the following packages or one of their subpackages:
java.lang, java.io, java.util, java.net, the connection
returned will be of that subclass. For example, for HTTP an
HttpURLConnection will be returned, and for JAR a
JarURLConnection will be returned.
-
Returns:
-
a
URLConnection
linking
to the URL.
-
Throws:
-
IOException
- if an I/O exception occurs.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
public URLConnection openConnection(Proxy proxy)
throws IOException
Same as
openConnection()
, except that the connection will be
made through the specified proxy; Protocol handlers that do not
support proxing will ignore the proxy parameter and make a
normal connection.
Invoking this method preempts the system's default ProxySelector
settings.
-
Parameters:
-
proxy
- the Proxy through which this connection
will be made. If direct connection is desired,
Proxy.NO_PROXY should be specified.
-
Returns:
-
a
URLConnection
to the URL.
-
Throws:
-
IOException
- if an I/O exception occurs.
-
SecurityException
- if a security manager is present
and the caller doesn't have permission to connect
to the proxy.
-
IllegalArgumentException
- will be thrown if proxy is null,
or proxy has the wrong type
-
UnsupportedOperationException
- if the subclass that
implements the protocol handler doesn't support
this method.
-
Since:
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
,
URLConnection
,
URLStreamHandler.openConnection(java.net.URL,
java.net.Proxy)
public final InputStream openStream()
throws IOException
Opens a connection to this
URL
and returns an
InputStream
for reading from that connection. This
method is a shorthand for:
openConnection().getInputStream()
-
Returns:
-
an input stream for reading from the URL connection.
-
Throws:
-
IOException
- if an I/O exception occurs.
-
See Also:
-
openConnection()
,
URLConnection.getInputStream()
public final Object getContent()
throws IOException
Gets the contents of this URL. This method is a shorthand for:
openConnection().getContent()
-
Returns:
-
the contents of this URL.
-
Throws:
-
IOException
- if an I/O exception occurs.
-
See Also:
-
URLConnection.getContent()
public final Object getContent(Class[] classes)
throws IOException
Gets the contents of this URL. This method is a shorthand for:
openConnection().getContent(Class[])
-
Parameters:
-
classes
- an array of Java types
-
Returns:
-
the content object of this URL that is the first match of
the types specified in the classes array.
null if none of the requested types are supported.
-
Throws:
-
IOException
- if an I/O exception occurs.
-
Since:
-
See Also:
-
URLConnection.getContent(Class[])
setURLStreamHandlerFactory
public static void setURLStreamHandlerFactory(URLStreamHandlerFactory fac)
Sets an application's
URLStreamHandlerFactory
.
This method can be called at most once in a given Java Virtual
Machine.
The
URLStreamHandlerFactory
instance is used to
construct a stream protocol handler from a protocol name.
If there is a security manager, this method first calls
the security manager's
checkSetFactory
method
to ensure the operation is allowed.
This could result in a SecurityException.
-
Parameters:
-
fac
- the desired factory.
-
Throws:
-
Error
- if the application has already set a factory.
-
SecurityException
- if a security manager exists and its
checkSetFactory
method doesn't allow
the operation.
-
See Also:
-
URL(java.lang.String, java.lang.String,
int, java.lang.String)
,
URLStreamHandlerFactory
,
SecurityManager.checkSetFactory()