Uploading Files to an HTTP Server with Additional Parameters in Java

Uploading files to an HTTP server is a common necessity for many applications. However, sometimes it is also necessary to pass additional parameters along with the files. Here's a solution that allows you to send both files and parameters without using external libraries:

java.net.URLConnection and Multipart/Form-Data

To send files and parameters, you'll utilize java.net.URLConnection and employ multipart/form-data encoding. Multipart/form-data allows you to mix binary data (files) and character data (parameters) in a single HTTP request.

Example Code:

String url = "http://example.com/upload";
String charset = "UTF-8";
String param = "value";
File textFile = new File("/path/to/file.txt");
File binaryFile = new File("/path/to/file.bin");
String boundary = Long.toHexString(System.currentTimeMillis());
String CRLF = "\r\n";

URLConnection connection = new URL(url).openConnection();
connection.setDoOutput(true);
connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "multipart/form-data; boundary="   boundary);

try (
    OutputStream output = connection.getOutputStream();
    PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(output, charset), true);
) {
    // Send normal param.
    writer.append("--"   boundary).append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"param\"").append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Type: text/plain; charset="   charset).append(CRLF);
    writer.append(CRLF).append(param).append(CRLF).flush();

    // Send text file.
    writer.append("--"   boundary).append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"textFile\"; filename=\""   textFile.getName()   "\"").append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Type: text/plain; charset="   charset).append(CRLF);
    writer.append(CRLF).flush();
    Files.copy(textFile.toPath(), output);
    output.flush(); 
    writer.append(CRLF).flush();

    // Send binary file.
    writer.append("--"   boundary).append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"binaryFile\"; filename=\""   binaryFile.getName()   "\"").append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Type: "   URLConnection.guessContentTypeFromName(binaryFile.getName())).append(CRLF);
    writer.append("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary").append(CRLF);
    writer.append(CRLF).flush();
    Files.copy(binaryFile.toPath(), output);
    output.flush(); 
    writer.append(CRLF).flush();

    // End of multipart/form-data.
    writer.append("--"   boundary   "--").append(CRLF).flush();
}

// Request is lazily fired whenever you need to obtain information about response.
int responseCode = ((HttpURLConnection) connection).getResponseCode();
System.out.println(responseCode); 

Additional Notes:

• Ensure to provide a unique boundary value for each multipart request.
• Files must be in the charset specified when sending the Content-Type header.
• Apache Commons HttpComponents Client can streamline the process further, but it's not necessary.

Reference:

• [Using java.net.URLConnection to fire and handle HTTP requests](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/networking/urls/creating-urls.html)