HttpURLConnection in Java: Purpose Explained

HttpURLConnection in Java is a class used to send and receive HTTP requests, which is a part of the Java standard library and can be used to establish HTTP connections and communicate with remote servers.

HttpURLConnection can be used to perform the following tasks:

1. Sending HTTP requests: Various types of HTTP requests such as GET and POST can be sent using HttpURLConnection.
2. Specify the request headers: You can set the header information of an HTTP request, such as User-Agent, Content-Type, etc.
3. Sending request parameters: You can use HttpURLConnection to send request parameters, such as form data and query strings.
4. Receive response: You can use HttpURLConnection to retrieve the response from the server, including the status code, response headers, and body.
5. Process responses: can handle the responses returned by the server, such as parsing JSON data, reading response streams, etc.
6. Handling file uploads and downloads: the functionality of uploading and downloading files can be achieved using HttpURLConnection.

In conclusion, HttpURLConnection offers a simple and flexible way to handle HTTP requests and responses, making it one of the commonly used classes in Java for network communication.