How do I make an http request using cookies on Android?

A cookie is just another HTTP header. You can always set it while making a HTTP call with the apache library or with HTTPUrlConnection. Either way you should be able to read and set HTTP cookies in this fashion.

You can read this article for more information.

I can share my peace of code to demonstrate how easy you can make it.

public static String getServerResponseByHttpGet(String url, String token) {

        try {
            HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
            HttpGet get = new HttpGet(url);
            get.setHeader("Cookie", "PHPSESSID=" + token + ";");
            Log.d(TAG, "Try to open => " + url);

            HttpResponse httpResponse = client.execute(get);
            int connectionStatusCode = httpResponse.getStatusLine().getStatusCode();
            Log.d(TAG, "Connection code: " + connectionStatusCode + " for request: " + url);

            HttpEntity entity = httpResponse.getEntity();
            String serverResponse = EntityUtils.toString(entity);
            Log.d(TAG, "Server response for request " + url + " => " + serverResponse);

            if(!isStatusOk(connectionStatusCode))
                return null;

            return serverResponse;

        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
    }

It turns out that Google Android ships with Apache HttpClient 4.0, and I was able to figure out how to do it using the "Form based logon" example in the HttpClient docs:

https://github.com/apache/httpcomponents-client/blob/master/httpclient5/src/test/java/org/apache/hc/client5/http/examples/ClientFormLogin.java

---

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.NameValuePair;
import org.apache.http.client.entity.UrlEncodedFormEntity;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.cookie.Cookie;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.message.BasicNameValuePair;
import org.apache.http.protocol.HTTP;

/**
 * A example that demonstrates how HttpClient APIs can be used to perform
 * form-based logon.
 */
public class ClientFormLogin {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();

        HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet("https://portal.sun.com/portal/dt");

        HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget);
        HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();

        System.out.println("Login form get: " + response.getStatusLine());
        if (entity != null) {
            entity.consumeContent();
        }
        System.out.println("Initial set of cookies:");
        List<Cookie> cookies = httpclient.getCookieStore().getCookies();
        if (cookies.isEmpty()) {
            System.out.println("None");
        } else {
            for (int i = 0; i < cookies.size(); i++) {
                System.out.println("- " + cookies.get(i).toString());
            }
        }

        HttpPost httpost = new HttpPost("https://portal.sun.com/amserver/UI/Login?" +
                "org=self_registered_users&" +
                "goto=/portal/dt&" +
                "gotoOnFail=/portal/dt?error=true");

        List <NameValuePair> nvps = new ArrayList <NameValuePair>();
        nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("IDToken1", "username"));
        nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("IDToken2", "password"));

        httpost.setEntity(new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvps, HTTP.UTF_8));

        response = httpclient.execute(httpost);
        entity = response.getEntity();

        System.out.println("Login form get: " + response.getStatusLine());
        if (entity != null) {
            entity.consumeContent();
        }

        System.out.println("Post logon cookies:");
        cookies = httpclient.getCookieStore().getCookies();
        if (cookies.isEmpty()) {
            System.out.println("None");
        } else {
            for (int i = 0; i < cookies.size(); i++) {
                System.out.println("- " + cookies.get(i).toString());
            }
        }

        // When HttpClient instance is no longer needed, 
        // shut down the connection manager to ensure
        // immediate deallocation of all system resources
        httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();        
    }
}