The http package is responsible for HTTP connections to servers. The Lexer and Parser provide many ways to supply text to be parsed, but this package only deals with cases where a URL is supplied as a string, with the expectation that the Lexer or Parser will perform the HTTP connection.

The {@link org.htmlparser.http.ConnectionManager} class adds

- cookie
- proxy
- password protected URL

capabilities when accessing the internet via the HTTP protocol. Each of these capabilities requires conditioning the HTTP connection.

The {@link org.htmlparser.http.ConnectionMonitor} interface is a callback mechanism for the ConnectionManager to notify an interested application when an HTTP connection is made. Example uses may include conditioning the connection further, accessing HTTP header information, or providing reporting or statistical functions. Callbacks are not performed for FileURLConnections, which are also handled by the connection manager.

The {@link org.htmlparser.http.Cookie} class is a container for cookie data received and sent in HTTP requests and responses. It may be necessary to prime the ConnectionManager with cookies received via a login procedure in order to access protected HTML content.

A typical use of this package, might look something like this:

    ConnectionManager manager = Parser.getConnectionManager ();
    // set up proxying
    manager.setProxyHost ("proxyhost.mycompany.com");
    manager.setProxyPort (8888);
    manager.setProxyUser ("FredBarnes");
    manager.setProxyPassword ("secret");
    // set up cookies
    Cookie cookie = new Cookie ("USER", "FreddyBaby");
    manager.setCookie (cookie, "www.freshmeat.net");
    cookie = new Cookie ("PHPSESSID", "e5dbeb6152e70d99427f2458d8969f8b");
    cookie.setDomain (".freshmeat.net");
    manager.setCookie (cookie, null);
    // set up security to access a password protected URL
    manager.setUser ("FredB");
    manager.setPassword ("holy$cow");
    // set up an inner class for callbacks
    ConnectionMonitor monitor = new ConnectionMonitor ()
        {
            public void preConnect (HttpURLConnection connection)
     	{
                System.out.println (ConnectionManager.getRequestHeader (connection));
    	}
    	public void postConnect (HttpURLConnection connection)
    	{
                System.out.println (ConnectionManager.getResponseHeader (connection));
    	}
        };
    manager.setMonitor (monitor);
    // perform the connection
    Parser parser = new Parser ("http://frehmeat.net");

The ConnectionManager used by the Parser class is actually held by the {@link org.htmlparser.lexer.Page#mConnectionManager Page} class. It is accessible from the Parser (or the Page class) via {@link org.htmlparser.Parser#getConnectionManager getConnectionManager()}. It is a static (singleton) instance so that subsequent connections made by the parser will use the contents of the cookie jar from previous connections. By default, cookie processing is not enabled. It can be enabled by either setting a cookie or using {@link org.htmlparser.http.ConnectionManager#setCookieProcessingEnabled setCookieProcessingEnabled()}.