createHttpRequest() and all the helper class methods return a RestResult object that allows access to various parts of the response. The most interesting and useful method on the RestResult is readInputStream(). This is a convenience method which will return the response data into a String

public String readInputStream() throws IOException

After calling this method the String object which is returned will contain the JSON or XML with the content which was requested. The REST module uses the org.json.jar library and the dom4j XML library internally. You can also use these libraries, or comparable libraries, in your applications.

If the response data is large, you can access the input stream directly by calling getInputStream() on the RestResult.

Other useful methods on the RestResult object are getResponseCode() and getResponseMessage(). These return the response’s response code and message, respectively. For more information, see HTTP Status Codes.

The Java client library uses the java.net.HttpURLConnection class to communicate with servers. To access any functionality that the RestResult does not expose, call the getConnection() method to return the underlying HttpURLConnection object.

When you are finished with the RestResult object, it is good practice to call the close() method. This releases any resources that the HttpURLConnection might hold. If the connection is not closed, the next request to the server will close the HttpURLConnection.


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