How to prevent apache http client from following a redirect

Question

I\'m connecting to a remote server with apache http client. the remote server sends a redirect, and i want to achieve that my client isn\'t following the redirect automatica

Answer 1

Before HttpClient 4.3

In older versions of the Http Client (before 4.3), we can configure what the client does with redirects as follows:

@Test
public void givenRedirectsAreDisabled_whenConsumingUrlWhichRedirects_thenNotRedirected() 
  throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
    DefaultHttpClient instance = new DefaultHttpClient();

    HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
    params.setParameter(ClientPNames.HANDLE_REDIRECTS, false);
    // HttpClientParams.setRedirecting(params, false); // alternative

    HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet("http:/testabc.com");
    httpGet.setParams(params);
    CloseableHttpResponse response = instance.execute(httpGet);

    assertThat(response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode(), equalTo(301));
}

Notice the alternative API that can be used to configure the redirect behavior without using setting the actual raw http.protocol.handle-redirects parameter:

HttpClientParams.setRedirecting(params, false);

Also notice that, with follow redirects disabled, we can now check that the Http Response status code is indeed 301 Moved Permanently – as it should be.

After HttpClient 4.3

HttpClient 4.3 introduced a cleaner, more high level API to build and configure the client:

@Test
public void givenRedirectsAreDisabled_whenConsumingUrlWhichRedirects_thenNotRedirected() 
  throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
    HttpClient instance = HttpClientBuilder.create().disableRedirectHandling().build();
    HttpResponse response = instance.execute(new HttpGet("http://testabc.com"));

    assertThat(response.getStatusLine().getStatusCode(), equalTo(301));
}

Note that the new API configures the entire client with this redirect behavior – not just the individual request. Reference: http://www.baeldung.com/httpclient-stop-follow-redirect