Problem with httpConnection

[Thomassius]

Hey guys (and girls)!

Currently I'm using the Google Static Maps API, this all works fine until I start using the "|" character in my URL. When using this character it throws an exception on the last line of code (Error in HTTP operation). Anybody any ideas how to work around this issue?

 
 HttpConnection hc = null;
 DataInputStream in = null;

 String url = "http://maps.google.com/staticmap?path=37.40139,-122.05708|37.40139,-122.09639&zoom=13&size=245x245";
                   
 hc = (HttpConnection)Connector.open(url);
 in = new DataInputStream(hc.openInputStream());

Thanks

[grahamhughes]

"|" is not a valid character in a URL. Replace it with "%7C".

Graham.

[psorobka]

You can use this code to escape urls:

  private static char[] ESCAPED = {
        ' ', '<', '>', '#', '%', '{', '}', '|', '\\', '^',
        '~', '[', ']', '`', ';', '?', ':', '@', '=', '&', '$'
    };

    public static String escapeChar(
            char c) {
        for (int j = 0; j <
                ESCAPED.length; j++) {
            if (c == ESCAPED[j]) {
                return '%' + Integer.toHexString(c);
            }

        }
        return String.valueOf(c);
    }

    public static String escapeURL(
            String s) {
        if (s == null || s.equals("")) {
            return "";
        }

        StringBuffer escaped = new StringBuffer();

        for (int i = 0; i <
                s.length(); i++) {
            char c = s.charAt(i);

            escaped.append(escapeChar(c));
        }

        return escaped.toString();
    }

[Thomassius]

Thanks!

The html representation of the pipe character works fine!

[bhanuchandar.k]

Hi Thomassius,
The ideal way of doing this is if there is any charecter rather than 1-9 , a-z and A-Z then put the Equivalent hex value

StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("");
char c;
for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
c = s.charAt(i);
if ( (c >= '0' && c <= '9') || (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z') || (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z')) {
sb.append(c);
continue;
}

if (c > 15) {
sb.append("%" + Integer.toHexString( (int) c));
}else {
sb.append("%0" + Integer.toHexString( (int) c)) ;
}
}

[psorobka]

bhanuchandar.k:

Nice, better idea

Edit:

No, I'm afraid its not a good idea after all - what about '?' and '&'?

[bhanuchandar.k]

Hi psorobka,
You have to encode only the data part not entire url
i.e if your request is like this
http://www.xxx.com/AppName/yyy.jsp?A...=value&c=value

You have to do the encoding of values only not the entire url