Reading a file from the internet?

[ngc0202]

Hi everyone, I am currently writing a programme, and I came across an issue. The only solution I saw was to host the required files on my site and have the programme read them from there. The only problem was that I have no idea how to do such a thing. I googled it and I read URL (Java 2 Platform SE v1.4.2) but I was still a bit confused as I had never done anything like this. Can I get an idea of what do to or something to read that will help?

[Norm]

Does your site have a server that will return the files when they are requested by a client?
That is the normal job of a server.
If the server is an HTTP server, then to read a file, you need to issue an HTTP GET request to the server and then read its response.
Look at the HttpURLConnection and URLConnection classes.
A Search on the forum will give code samples.

[ngc0202]

No, it wouldn't do anything like that. The programme will know the URL of the file, and I need it to retrieve the data I have in it as it would for a local file.

[Norm]

I need it to retrieve the data I have in it as it would for a local file.

What kind of "server" are you using? Can you explain what your setup is?

To "read" a file from a server, you need to send a request to the server to send you the file.
One protocol for doing that is HTTP. Another is FTP.

[ngc0202]

There is no server, it just needs to read each line off of a file on the site. Like this: http://kicneoj.webs.com/folder/fornorm.txt the programme does all the stuff it seems this server might. It processes the user input and knows the exact location of the file it needs, I just need it to be able to read it.

[Norm]

If there is no server, how does the "site" exist? How does any code communicate with the "site" without a server?

Did you notice that the URL you posted uses the HTTP protocol? See its first 4 letters

When I "connect" to the URL you have posted above, the server returns this to my program:

>>>>>> Using URLConnection <<<<<<
hdr> Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:23:13 GMT
hdr> Server: Apache/1.3.39 (Unix) mod_jk/1.2.26 mod_layout/3.2 mod_gzip/1.3.19.1a mod_throttle/3.1.2
hdr> Last-Modified: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:43:16 GMT
hdr> ETag: "9-4c8bbfb4"
hdr> Accept-Ranges: bytes
hdr> Content-Length: 9
hdr> Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=80
hdr> Connection: Keep-Alive
hdr> Content-Type: text/plain
like this

The lines with >hdr are the HTTP response header records. Notice the server identifies itself as Server: Apache/1.3.39

[ngc0202]

Well, the server doesn't do anything related to the programme, as I don't even have very much control over it. It's all in the programme, except the data that it needs to read off of a page like the one I linked you to.

[Norm]

To understand how the server works you need to do some research on the HTTP protocol.
Then read about the two classes I mentioned above and Search for posts on the forum for code samples.

Believe me there are servers and other bits of software involved in reading data from a site.