Simple HTTP Server in Java
17 Dec 2013
Some thing I’ve been using for a while, and which recently became useful at work as well, is a simple HTTP service written in plain Java with existing JRE functionality, using an HttpServer.
Here’s a simple “main()” which sets up two basic “pages”, a root (/) and one which echoes your browser’s request headers (/headers/).
public class SimpleHTTPService {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
HttpServer server = HttpServerProvider.provider().createHttpServer(new InetSocketAddress(8080), 0);
server.createContext("/", new HttpHandler() {
@Override
public void handle(HttpExchange he) throws IOException {
byte[] output = "Hello world!".getBytes();
he.sendResponseHeaders(200, output.length);
he.getResponseBody().write(output);
}
});
server.createContext("/headers", new HttpHandler() {
@Override
public void handle(HttpExchange he) throws IOException {
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder("Request Headers");
for (Entry< String, List< String>> header : he.getRequestHeaders().entrySet()) {
result.append(String.format("%s", header.getKey()));
for (String val : header.getValue()) {
result.append(String.format("%s", val));
}
result.append("");
}
byte[] output = result.toString().getBytes();
he.sendResponseHeaders(200, output.length);
he.getResponseBody().write(output);
}
});
server.setExecutor(Executors.newCachedThreadPool());
server.start();
System.out.println("HTTP Listening on port " + server.getAddress().getPort());
}
}
Running this as-is will allow you to load up the URLs
http://localhost:8080/ and http://localhost:8080/headers/ and see
some output generated by the two registered contexts.
I’ve defined simple anonymous inner class contexts here, as it’s easy to play with, but obviously you can go wild and develop proper structures for these.
Combined with something like FreeMarker, and you’ve got a pretty neat way to deploy simple stand-alone HTTP applications written in Java with minimal external dependencies.
It’s also extremely useful for creating mock-ups services for use in unit tests for HTTP clients.