How to limit the length of the HttpClient response

The trick is simple. You have to take an InputStream, read it, and stop reading when the limit is exceeded.

      InputStream instream = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();

      

        
        
        
      

    

I made an example customizing apache example a bit.

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.DefaultHttpMethodRetryHandler;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpException;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpStatus;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.GetMethod;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.params.HttpMethodParams;
public class HttpClientTutorial {

  private static String url = "http://www.apache.com";
  private static final int LIMIT = 1024*1024;//set to 1MB
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Create an instance of HttpClient.
    HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
    // Create a method instance.
    GetMethod method = new GetMethod(url);   
    // Provide custom retry handler is necessary
    method.getParams().setParameter(HttpMethodParams.RETRY_HANDLER, 
            new DefaultHttpMethodRetryHandler(3, false));
    try {
      // Execute the method.
      int statusCode = client.executeMethod(method);
      if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
        System.err.println("Method failed: " + method.getStatusLine());
      }
      // Read the response body.
      //byte[] responseBody = method.getResponseBody();
      byte[] responseBody = null;    
      InputStream instream = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();
      if (instream != null) {
          long contentLength = method.getResponseContentLength();
          if (contentLength < Integer.MAX_VALUE) { //guard below cast from overflow
              ByteArrayOutputStream outstream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
              byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
              int len;
              int total = 0;
              while ((len = instream.read(buffer)) > 0 && total<LIMIT) {
                  outstream.write(buffer, 0, len);
                  total+= len;
              }
              responseBody = outstream.toByteArray();
              outstream.close();
              instream.close();
              System.out.println(new String(responseBody));
          }
      }
    } catch (HttpException e) {
      System.err.println("Fatal protocol violation: " + e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
      System.err.println("Fatal transport error: " + e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
      // Release the connection.
      method.releaseConnection();
    }  
  }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Hope this helps.