Getting request payload from POST request in Java servlet

Simple answer: Use getReader() to read the body of the request

More info: There are two methods for reading the data in the body:

getReader() returns a BufferedReader that will allow you to read the body of the request. getInputStream() returns a ServletInputStream if you need to read binary data.

Note from the docs: "[Either method] may be called to read the body, not both."

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String payloadRequest = getBody(request);

Using this method

public static String getBody(HttpServletRequest request) throws IOException {

    String body = null;
    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    BufferedReader bufferedReader = null;

    try {
        InputStream inputStream = request.getInputStream();
        if (inputStream != null) {
            bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
            char[] charBuffer = new char[128];
            int bytesRead = -1;
            while ((bytesRead = bufferedReader.read(charBuffer)) > 0) {
                stringBuilder.append(charBuffer, 0, bytesRead);
            }
        } else {
            stringBuilder.append("");
        }
    } catch (IOException ex) {
        throw ex;
    } finally {
        if (bufferedReader != null) {
            try {
                bufferedReader.close();
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                throw ex;
            }
        }
    }

    body = stringBuilder.toString();
    return body;
}

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You can use Buffer Reader from request to read

    // Read from request
    StringBuilder buffer = new StringBuilder();
    BufferedReader reader = request.getReader();
    String line;
    while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
        buffer.append(line);
        buffer.append(System.lineSeparator());
    }
    String data = buffer.toString()

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Java 8 streams

String body = request.getReader().lines()
    .reduce("", (accumulator, actual) -> accumulator + actual);

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With Apache Commons IO you can do this in one line.

IOUtils.toString(request.getReader())

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If the contents of the body are a string in Java 8 you can do:

String body = request.getReader().lines().collect(Collectors.joining());

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If you are able to send the payload in JSON, this is a most convenient way to read the playload:

Example data class:

public class Person {
    String firstName;
    String lastName;
    // Getters and setters ...
}

Example payload (request body):

{ "firstName" : "John", "lastName" : "Doe" }

Code to read payload in servlet (requires com.google.gson.*):

Person person = new Gson().fromJson(request.getReader(), Person.class);

That's all. Nice, easy and clean. Don't forget to set the content-type header to application/json.

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Using Java 8 try with resources:

    StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
    try(BufferedReader bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(request.getInputStream()))) {
        char[] charBuffer = new char[1024];
        int bytesRead;
        while ((bytesRead = bufferedReader.read(charBuffer)) > 0) {
            stringBuilder.append(charBuffer, 0, bytesRead);
        }
    }

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You only need

request.getParameterMap()

for getting the POST and GET - Parameters.

The Method returns a Map<String,String[]>.

You can read the parameters in the Map by

Map<String, String[]> map = request.getParameterMap();
//Reading the Map
//Works for GET && POST Method
for(String paramName:map.keySet()) {
    String[] paramValues = map.get(paramName);

    //Get Values of Param Name
    for(String valueOfParam:paramValues) {
        //Output the Values
        System.out.println("Value of Param with Name "+paramName+": "+valueOfParam);
    }
}

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