How to execute a https GET request from java

this is my quick and dirty https client in Java, that ignores invalid certificates and authenticates using BASIC

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.security.KeyManagementException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;

import javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.TrustManager;

    public static HttpsURLConnection getConnection(boolean ignoreInvalidCertificate, String user, String pass, HttpRequestMethod httpRequestMethod, URL url) throws KeyManagementException, NoSuchAlgorithmException, IOException{
        SSLContext ctx = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
        if (ignoreInvalidCertificate){
            ctx.init(null, new TrustManager[] { new InvalidCertificateTrustManager() }, null);  
        }       
        SSLContext.setDefault(ctx);

        String authStr = user+":"+pass;
        String authEncoded = Base64.encodeBytes(authStr.getBytes());

        HttpsURLConnection connection = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();

        connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
        connection.setDoOutput(true);
        connection.setRequestProperty("Authorization", "Basic " + authEncoded);     

        if (ignoreInvalidCertificate){
            connection.setHostnameVerifier(new InvalidCertificateHostVerifier());
        }

        return connection;
    }

--

import javax.net.ssl.HostnameVerifier;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSession;

public class InvalidCertificateHostVerifier implements HostnameVerifier{
    @Override
    public boolean verify(String paramString, SSLSession paramSSLSession) {
        return true;
    }
}

--

import java.security.cert.CertificateException;
import java.security.cert.X509Certificate;

import javax.net.ssl.X509TrustManager;

/**
 * ignore invalid Https certificate from OPAM
 * <p>see http://javaskeleton.blogspot.com.br/2011/01/avoiding-sunsecurityvalidatorvalidatore.html
 */
public class InvalidCertificateTrustManager implements X509TrustManager{
    @Override
    public X509Certificate[] getAcceptedIssuers() {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void checkServerTrusted(X509Certificate[] paramArrayOfX509Certificate, String paramString) throws CertificateException {

    }

    @Override
    public void checkClientTrusted(X509Certificate[] paramArrayOfX509Certificate, String paramString) throws CertificateException {
    }
}

maybe it's something you can start with.

of course, since you have the connection, you can retrieve the response contents using

InputStream content = (InputStream) connection.getInputStream();