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Unirest: Lightweight HTTP Request Client Libraries

UniRest

Unirest is a set of lightweight HTTP libraries available in multiple languages, built and maintained by the Mashape team.

Unirest.post("http://httpbin.org/post")
  .queryString("name", "Mark")
  .field("last", "Polo")
  .asJson()

Features

  • Make GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS requests
  • Both syncronous and asynchronous (non-blocking) requests
  • It supports form parameters, file uploads and custom body entities
  • Easily add route parameters without ugly string concatenations
  • Supports gzip
  • Supports Basic Authentication natively
  • Customizable timeout, concurrency levels and proxy settings
  • Customizable default headers for every request (DRY)
  • Customizable HttpClient and HttpAsyncClient implementation
  • Automatic JSON parsing into a native object for JSON responses
  • Customizable binding, with mapping from response body to java Object

Installing

Is easy as pie. Kidding. It’s about as easy as doing these little steps:

With Maven

You can use Maven by including the library:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.mashape.unirest</groupId>
    <artifactId>unirest-java</artifactId>
    <version>1.4.7</version>
</dependency>

There are dependencies for Unirest-Java, these should be already installed, and they are as follows:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
  <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
  <version>4.3.6</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
  <artifactId>httpasyncclient</artifactId>
  <version>4.0.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
  <artifactId>httpmime</artifactId>
  <version>4.3.6</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.json</groupId>
  <artifactId>json</artifactId>
  <version>20140107</version>
</dependency>

If you would like to run tests, also add the following dependency along with the others:

<dependency>
  <groupId>junit</groupId>
  <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
  <version>4.11</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>commons-io</groupId>
  <artifactId>commons-io</artifactId>
  <version>2.4</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Without Maven

Alternatively if you don’t use Maven, you can directly include the JAR file in the classpath:http://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/releases/com/mashape/unirest/unirest-java/1.4.7/unirest-java-1.4.7.jar

Don’t forget to also install the dependencies (org.json, httpclient 4.3.6, httpmime 4.3.6,httpasyncclient 4.0.2) in the classpath too.

There is also a way to generate a Unirest-Java JAR file that already includes the required dependencies, but you will need Maven to generate it. Follow the instructions at http://blog.mashape.com/post/69117323931/installing-unirest-java-with-the-maven-assembly-plugin

Creating Request

So you’re probably wondering how using Unirest makes creating requests in Java easier, here is a basic POST request that will explain everything:

HttpResponse<JsonNode> jsonResponse = Unirest.post("http://httpbin.org/post")
  .header("accept", "application/json")
  .queryString("apiKey", "123")
  .field("parameter", "value")
  .field("foo", "bar")
  .asJson();

Requests are made when as[Type]() is invoked, possible types include Json, Binary, String, Object.

If the request supports and it is of type HttpRequestWithBody, a body it can be passed along with.body(String|JsonNode|Object). For using .body(Object) some pre-configuration is needed (see below).

If you already have a map of parameters or do not wish to use seperate field methods for each one there is a.fields(Map<String, Object> fields) method that will serialize each key – value to form parameters on your request.

.headers(Map<String, String> headers) is also supported in replacement of multiple header methods.

Full Documentation @ unirest.io

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