URL Illegal Character

Question

Here is my code: ``` HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(); client.getParams().setParameter(CoreProtocolPNames.USER_AGENT, "android"); HttpGet request = new HttpGet(); request.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/plain; charset=utf-8"); Log.d("URL", convertURL(URL)); request.setURI(new URI(URL)); HttpResponse response = client.execute(request); bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(response.getEntity().getContent())); StringBuffer stringBuffer = new StringBuffer(""); String line = ""; String NL = System.getProperty("line.separator"); ``` I don't know which error in my URL: `http://localhost/CyborgService/chatservice.php?action=recive_game&nick_sender=mkdarkness&pass=MV030595&date_last=2012-11-18 09:46:37&id_game=1` I have already used a function to convert URL, but has not worked. But, if I trying open this URL in my Browser, it opens successfully. Here is my error: ``` 11-18 21:46:37.766: E/GetHttp(823): java.net.URISyntaxException: Illegal character in query at…

Accepted Answer

There is a space in your URL, in position 127. The date is generated as "date_last=2012-11-18 09:46:37", which causes an error when opening the URL.

Spaces are not formally accepted in URLs, although your browser will happily convert it to "%20" or to "+", both valid representations of a space in a URL. You should escape all characters: you can replace space with "+" or just pass the String through URLEncoder and be done with it.

To use URLEncoder see e.g. this question: encode with URLEncoder only parameter values, not the full URL. Or use one of the constructors for URI which have a few parameters, not a single one. You are not showing the code that constructs the URL so I cannot comment on it explicitly. But if you have a map of parameters `parameterMap` it would be something like:

```
String url = baseUrl + "?";
for (String key : parameterMap.keys())
{
  String value = parameterMap.get(key);
  String encoded = URLEncoder.encode(value, "UTF-8");
  url += key + "&" + encoded;
}
```

Some other day we can talk about why Java requires to set the encoding and then requires that the encoding be "UTF-8", instead of just using "UTF-8" as the default encoding, but for now this code should do the trick.

URL Illegal Character

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