Hey, I tried out a few things to HTMLRetriever, and the results were no
different: NULL.

I am at a complete loss because the URL comes across just fine in your
browser:

1) Type
http://www.myjavaserver.com/servlet/ppowell.ChatServlet?message=%2fa+James&nickn
ame=James
(this will add your nickname to messages.txt which will be read by the
2nd URL - and I've already verified that this txt file exists and is
populated)

2) Type
http://www.myjavaserver.com/servlet/ppowell.ChatServlet?message=%2fm&nickname=James

 a) Use your browsers (IE and Firefox) and you'll see it comes up just
fine
 b) Then try using HttpClient, HttpUnit or whatever Java-based data
scraper you have (even try HTMLRetriever if you want) and it will
ALWAYS return null!

I cannot fathom how on earth a URL could return null when scraped but
return with content when called via browser! Why in the world would
that happen?

Phil

[CODE]
package ppowell;

/**
* For implementation of Retriever by superclass FlatFileRetriever
*/
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.Vector;        // FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF RETRIEVER
import java.util.regex.*;

/**
* This class will retrieve all "Safe HTML" tags for display
*
* @version JDK 1.4
* @author Phil Powell
* @package PPOWELL
*/
public class HTMLRetriever extends FlatFileRetriever {

private String fileName = "";
private static final String qsPatternStr =
"\\?([a-zA-Z0-9\\-_\\.]+=[a-zA-Z0-9\\-_\\.%\\+,\\^~]*&?)+#?.*$";

/**
 * Constructor
 * Constructs superclass constructor and local construction
 *
 * @access public
 * @param String fileName
 * @param int displayColAmount
 * @see FlatFileRetriever
 */
public HTMLRetriever(String fileName) {        // CONSTRUCTOR
 super(fileName);
 this.fileName = fileName;
}

//------------- --* GETTER/SETTER METHODS *-- -----------------
/**
 * Get file including query string and ref
 *
 * @access private
 * @return String file
 */
private String getFile() {                // PRIVATE STRING METHOD
 String file = "";
 try {
  URL url = new URL(this.fileName);
  file = url.getFile();
  if (Pattern.matches(HTMLRetriever.qsPatternStr, this.fileName) &&
!Pattern.matches(HTMLRetriever.qsPatternStr, file))
   file += url.getQuery();
 } catch (Exception e) {} // DO NOTHING
 return file;
}

/**
 * Get host
 *
 * @access private
 * @return String host
 */
private String getHost() {                // PRIVATE STRING METHOD
 try {
  URL url = new URL(this.fileName);
  return url.getHost();
 } catch (Exception e) {
  return "";
 }
}

/**
 * Override getHTML() method in superclass FlatFileRetriever
 *
 * @access public
 * @return String HTML
 */
public String getHTML() {                              // STRING
METHOD
 String html = "", stuff = "";
 try {
  URL url = this.generateURL();
  HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection)url.openConnection();
  conn.setDoInput(true);
  conn.setDoOutput(true);
  conn.setUseCaches(false);
  conn.setDefaultUseCaches(false);
  conn.setRequestProperty("content-type", "text/html");
  BufferedReader fromURL = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
  while ((stuff = fromURL.readLine()) != null) html += stuff + "\n";
  fromURL.close();
  conn.close();
 } catch (Exception e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
 }
 return html;
}

/**
 * Get port
 *
 * @access private
 * @return int port
 */
private int getPort() {                // PRIVATE INT METHOD
 try {
  URL url = new URL(this.fileName);
  return url.getPort();
 } catch (Exception e) {
  return 0;
 }
}

/**
 * Get protocol
 *
 * @access private
 * @return String protocol
 */
private String getProtocol() {                // PRIVATE STRING METHOD
 try {
  URL url = new URL(this.fileName);
  return url.getProtocol();
 } catch (Exception e) {
  return "";
 }
}

//------------- --* END OF GETTER/SETTER METHODS *-- -----------------

/**
 * Generate URL object
 *
 * @access private
 * @return URL url
 */
private URL generateURL() {                // PRIVATE URL METHOD
 try {
  URL url = null;
  if (Pattern.matches(HTMLRetriever.qsPatternStr, this.fileName)) {

   url = new URL(this.getProtocol(), this.getHost(), this.getPort(),
this.getFile());
  } else {
   url = new URL(this.fileName);
  }
  return url;
 } catch (Exception e) {
  return null;
 }
}

}

[/CODE]