[android] How to send POST request in JSON using HTTPClient in Android?

I'm trying to figure out how to POST JSON from Android by using HTTPClient. I've been trying to figure this out for a while, I have found plenty of examples online, but I cannot get any of them to work. I believe this is because of my lack of JSON/networking knowledge in general. I know there are plenty of examples out there but could someone point me to an actual tutorial? I'm looking for a step by step process with code and explanation of why you do each step, or of what that step does. It doesn't need to be a complicated, simple will suffice.

Again, I know there are a ton of examples out there, I'm just really looking for an example with an explanation of what exactly is happening and why it is doing that way.

If someone knows about a good Android book on this, then please let me know.

Thanks again for the help @terrance, here is the code I described below

public void shNameVerParams() throws Exception{
     String path = //removed
     HashMap  params = new HashMap();

     params.put(new String("Name"), "Value"); 
     params.put(new String("Name"), "Value");

     try {
        HttpClient.SendHttpPost(path, params);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
 }

Too much code for this task, checkout this library https://github.com/kodart/Httpzoid Is uses GSON internally and provides API that works with objects. All JSON details are hidden.

Http http = HttpFactory.create(context);
http.get("http://example.com/users")
    .handler(new ResponseHandler<User[]>() {
        @Override
        public void success(User[] users, HttpResponse response) {
        }
    }).execute();

Here is an alternative solution to @Terrance's answer. You can easly outsource the conversion. The Gson library does wonderful work converting various data structures into JSON and the other way around.

public static void execute() {
    Map<String, String> comment = new HashMap<String, String>();
    comment.put("subject", "Using the GSON library");
    comment.put("message", "Using libraries is convenient.");
    String json = new GsonBuilder().create().toJson(comment, Map.class);
    makeRequest("http://192.168.0.1:3000/post/77/comments", json);
}

public static HttpResponse makeRequest(String uri, String json) {
    try {
        HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(uri);
        httpPost.setEntity(new StringEntity(json));
        httpPost.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
        httpPost.setHeader("Content-type", "application/json");
        return new DefaultHttpClient().execute(httpPost);
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}

Similar can be done by using Jackson instead of Gson. I also recommend taking a look at Retrofit which hides a lot of this boilerplate code for you. For more experienced developers I recommend trying out RxAndroid.

There are couple of ways to establish HHTP connection and fetch data from a RESTFULL web service. The most recent one is GSON. But before you proceed to GSON you must have some idea of the most traditional way of creating an HTTP Client and perform data communication with a remote server. I have mentioned both the methods to send POST & GET requests using HTTPClient.

/**
 * This method is used to process GET requests to the server.
 * 
 * @param url 
 * @return String
 * @throws IOException
 */
public static String connect(String url) throws IOException {

    HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(url);
    HttpResponse response;
    HttpParams httpParameters = new BasicHttpParams();
    // Set the timeout in milliseconds until a connection is established.
    // The default value is zero, that means the timeout is not used. 
    int timeoutConnection = 60*1000;
    HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutConnection);
    // Set the default socket timeout (SO_TIMEOUT) 
    // in milliseconds which is the timeout for waiting for data.
    int timeoutSocket = 60*1000;

    HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutSocket);
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParameters);
    try {

        response = httpclient.execute(httpget);

        HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
        if (entity != null) {
            InputStream instream = entity.getContent();
            result = convertStreamToString(instream);
            //instream.close();
        }
    } 
    catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
        Utilities.showDLog("connect","ClientProtocolException:-"+e);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Utilities.showDLog("connect","IOException:-"+e); 
    }
    return result;
}


 /**
 * This method is used to send POST requests to the server.
 * 
 * @param URL
 * @param paramenter
 * @return result of server response
 */
static public String postHTPPRequest(String URL, String paramenter) {       

    HttpParams httpParameters = new BasicHttpParams();
    // Set the timeout in milliseconds until a connection is established.
    // The default value is zero, that means the timeout is not used. 
    int timeoutConnection = 60*1000;
    HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutConnection);
    // Set the default socket timeout (SO_TIMEOUT) 
    // in milliseconds which is the timeout for waiting for data.
    int timeoutSocket = 60*1000;

    HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutSocket);
    HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParameters);
    HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(URL);
    httppost.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
    try {
        if (paramenter != null) {
            StringEntity tmp = null;
            tmp = new StringEntity(paramenter, "UTF-8");
            httppost.setEntity(tmp);
        }
        HttpResponse httpResponse = null;
        httpResponse = httpclient.execute(httppost);
        HttpEntity entity = httpResponse.getEntity();
        if (entity != null) {
            InputStream input = null;
            input = entity.getContent();
            String res = convertStreamToString(input);
            return res;
        }
    } 
     catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.print(e.toString());
    }
    return null;
}

I recommend using this HttpURLConnectioninstead HttpGet. As HttpGet is already deprecated in Android API level 22.

HttpURLConnection httpcon;  
String url = null;
String data = null;
String result = null;
try {
  //Connect
  httpcon = (HttpURLConnection) ((new URL (url).openConnection()));
  httpcon.setDoOutput(true);
  httpcon.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/json");
  httpcon.setRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");
  httpcon.setRequestMethod("POST");
  httpcon.connect();

  //Write       
  OutputStream os = httpcon.getOutputStream();
  BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(os, "UTF-8"));
  writer.write(data);
  writer.close();
  os.close();

  //Read        
  BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(httpcon.getInputStream(),"UTF-8"));

  String line = null; 
  StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();         

  while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {  
    sb.append(line); 
  }         

  br.close();  
  result = sb.toString();

} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}