HTTP Request in Kotlin

For Android, Volley is a good place to get started. For all platforms, you might also want to check out ktor client or http4k which are both good libraries.

However, you can also use standard Java libraries like java.net.HttpURLConnection which is part of the Java SDK:

fun sendGet() {
    val url = URL("http://www.google.com/")

    with(url.openConnection() as HttpURLConnection) {
        requestMethod = "GET"  // optional default is GET

        println("\nSent 'GET' request to URL : $url; Response Code : $responseCode")

        inputStream.bufferedReader().use {
            it.lines().forEach { line ->
                println(line)
            }
        }
    }
}

Or simpler:

URL("https://google.com").readText()

Send HTTP POST/GET request with parameters using HttpURLConnection :

POST with Parameters:

fun sendPostRequest(userName:String, password:String) {

    var reqParam = URLEncoder.encode("username", "UTF-8") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode(userName, "UTF-8")
    reqParam += "&" + URLEncoder.encode("password", "UTF-8") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode(password, "UTF-8")
    val mURL = URL("<Your API Link>")

    with(mURL.openConnection() as HttpURLConnection) {
        // optional default is GET
        requestMethod = "POST"

        val wr = OutputStreamWriter(getOutputStream());
        wr.write(reqParam);
        wr.flush();

        println("URL : $url")
        println("Response Code : $responseCode")

        BufferedReader(InputStreamReader(inputStream)).use {
            val response = StringBuffer()

            var inputLine = it.readLine()
            while (inputLine != null) {
                response.append(inputLine)
                inputLine = it.readLine()
            }
            println("Response : $response")
        }
    }
}

GET with Parameters:

fun sendGetRequest(userName:String, password:String) {

        var reqParam = URLEncoder.encode("username", "UTF-8") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode(userName, "UTF-8")
        reqParam += "&" + URLEncoder.encode("password", "UTF-8") + "=" + URLEncoder.encode(password, "UTF-8")

        val mURL = URL("<Yout API Link>?"+reqParam)

        with(mURL.openConnection() as HttpURLConnection) {
            // optional default is GET
            requestMethod = "GET"

            println("URL : $url")
            println("Response Code : $responseCode")

            BufferedReader(InputStreamReader(inputStream)).use {
                val response = StringBuffer()

                var inputLine = it.readLine()
                while (inputLine != null) {
                    response.append(inputLine)
                    inputLine = it.readLine()
                }
                it.close()
                println("Response : $response")
            }
        }
    }

Maybe the simplest GET

For everybody stuck with NetworkOnMainThreadException for the other solutions: use AsyncTask or, even shorter, (yet still experimental) Coroutines:

launch {

    val jsonStr = URL("url").readText()

}

---

If you need to test with plain http don't forget to add to your manifest: android:usesCleartextTraffic="true"

---

For the experimental Coroutines you have to add to build.gradle as of 10/10/2018:

kotlin {
    experimental {
        coroutines 'enable'
    }
}
dependencies {
    implementation "org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:0.24.0"
    implementation "org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:0.24.0"
    ...