Up until now, we have already covered configuring the HttpClient library and sending a GET Request using HttpClient in Java. If you haven’t checked that, go for it by clicking this link. Now, in this example, we are going to see “How to send a POST request with JSON as request body using Apache HttpClient by utilizing HttpPost method?”.

Post_Request_HttpClient_Techndeck

 

Simple example of POST Request with JSON using Apache HttpClient...!!! Share on X

In this tutorial, we are going to cover below topics:

  1. What is HTTP POST Request?
  2. How to send POST request with JSON using Apache HttpClient?

 

Check out: POST REQUEST using another popular API testing Framework – REST ASSURED

Let’s begin:

1. What is HTTP POST Request?

POST is one of the most common methods of HTTP which is used to send data to a server to create/update the resource. Data sent to the server is in the form of either Request Body / Request Parameters which is basically used to create or update the resource on the server.

Some key points of POST requests:

  • POST requests parameters doesn’t store in the browser history
  • POST requests are used to send data to the server to create or update the resource
  • POST requests cannot be cached
  • POST requests are secure as compared to GET because parameters/data doesn’t store in browser history
  • POST requests parameter data is unlimited as there are no length restrictions
  • POST requests cannot be bookmarked
  • POST requests allow ASCII characters
  • POST requests are difficult to hack

 

2. How to send POST request with JSON using Apache HttpClient?

In this tutorial, we will test the ‘Dummy Sample Rest API’ which is available here. This page contains Fake Online REST API for the testing purposes which are performing various CRUD operations.

Let’s take an example of one of the API POST endpoint available at the above-mentioned website which is ‘/create’. The full-service URL with endpoint is ‘http://dummy.restapiexample.com/api/v1/create‘.

At the above resource URL, we are going to submit data in the form of JSON to create an employee.

JSON Request Body:

 

Here is the code to send the POST request (containing request body in JSON format) to the above mentioned REST API Service Endpoint:

 

Let’s try to understand the code:

1. Specify the URL and set up CloseableHttpClient object

 

2. Create a basic Post Request and pass the resource URI to it and also assign headers to this post object

 

3. Supply the json request into the StringEntity object and assign it to the post object.

 

4. Submit the Request using HttpPost -> Execute method

 

5. Create a BufferedReader object and store the raw Response content into it.

 

6. Throw runtime exception if status code isn’t 200

 

7. Create the StringBuffer object and store the response into it.

 

8. Finally, Lets validate if a text ’employee_salary’ is present in the response

 

Eclipse Console Output:

 

That’s it, it’s that simple to make a POST Request with JSON body using Apache HttpClient: ?

Simple example of POST Request with JSON using Apache HttpClient...!!! Share on X

 

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Author

  • Deepak Verma

    Deepak Verma is a Test Automation Consultant and Software development Engineer for more than 10 years. His mission is to help you become an In-demand full stack automation tester. He is also the founder of Techndeck, a blog and online coaching platform dedicated to helping you succeed with all the automation basics to advanced testing automation tricks.

    http://Techndeck.com deepak.rkgit@gmail.com Verma Deepak