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I want to send post request to some service using Java. Requests must contain some parameters and one of them is multiline String. I tried many ways but everytime I end up with whole text submitted as single line without newline characters. Any ideas?

URL url = new URL("http://example.com/create");
URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
conn.setDoOutput(true);
OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(conn.getOutputStream());
String data = "param1=value&string=" + convertNewLineCharacters(text);
writer.write(data);
writer.flush();

// (...)
private String convertNewLineCharacters(String text) throws Exception  {
  String encodedString = URLEncoder.encode(text, "UTF-8");
  encodedString = encodedString.replaceAll("%0A", "\r\n");

  return encodedString;
}

I am limited to standard Java Api, so no external libraries are allowed.

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted 
// ...
conn.setRequestProperty( "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" ); // not sure it is important
// ...
writer.write(URLEncoder.encode(data, "UTF-8")); // urlencode the whole string and do not edit it
// ...
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This one isn't working. I tested it earlier. – Tomasz Dziurko Aug 21 '11 at 8:19
Maybe the error is on the other side, on the app receiving the form. Would you show us that code? – user270349 Aug 21 '11 at 16:27
This is not my web application so source code isn't available :) url: link. I even tried post a request with Firefox plugin but I still get single line. – Tomasz Dziurko Aug 22 '11 at 5:49
ok, looks like I made a mistake and your suggestion is working. Thanks for help – Tomasz Dziurko Aug 28 '11 at 12:11
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up vote 0 down vote 
package com.foo;

import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.net.URLDecoder;
import java.net.URLEncoder;

public class Foobar {
    public static void main(String...args) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
        String text = URLEncoder.encode("Foo\nBar", "UTF-8");
        System.out.println(URLDecoder.decode(text, "UTF-8"));
    }
}

Output: Foo
Bar

Just decode the encoded data. URLEncoder#encode(String s, "UTF-8") will percent encode any characters outside of the reserved set. See Percent encoding of character data.

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Yeah, but I am afraid that is not the case. All I need is the way how to send multiline String with POST so that web application receiving this will see it as multiline text posted in textarea. – Tomasz Dziurko Aug 21 '11 at 8:22
1  
The "web application" receiving this POST must decode it before using it. Set the correct content type as shown by @user270349. – Sahil Muthoo Aug 21 '11 at 8:34
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