I don't think http-builder is a Groovy module, but rather an external API on top of apache http-client so you do need to import classes and download a bunch of APIs. You are better using Gradle or @Grab to download the jar and dependencies:
If your needs are simple and you want to avoid adding additional dependencies you may be able to use the getText() methods that Groovy adds to the java.net.URL class:
new URL("http://stackoverflow.com").getText()
// or
new URL("http://stackoverflow.com")
.getText(connectTimeout: 5000,
readTimeout: 10000,
useCaches: true,
allowUserInteraction: false,
requestProperties: ['Connection': 'close'])
If you are expecting binary data back there is also similar functionality provided by the newInputStream() methods.
// GET
def get = new URL("https://httpbin.org/get").openConnection();
def getRC = get.getResponseCode();
println(getRC);
if (getRC.equals(200)) {
println(get.getInputStream().getText());
}
// POST
def post = new URL("https://httpbin.org/post").openConnection();
def message = '{"message":"this is a message"}'
post.setRequestMethod("POST")
post.setDoOutput(true)
post.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/json")
post.getOutputStream().write(message.getBytes("UTF-8"));
def postRC = post.getResponseCode();
println(postRC);
if (postRC.equals(200)) {
println(post.getInputStream().getText());
}
You can take advantage of Groovy features like with(), improvements to URLConnection, and simplified getters/setters:
GET:
String getResult = new URL('http://mytestsite/bloop').text
POST:
String postResult
((HttpURLConnection)new URL('http://mytestsite/bloop').openConnection()).with({
requestMethod = 'POST'
doOutput = true
setRequestProperty('Content-Type', '...') // Set your content type.
outputStream.withPrintWriter({printWriter ->
printWriter.write('...') // Your post data. Could also use withWriter() if you don't want to write a String.
})
// Can check 'responseCode' here if you like.
postResult = inputStream.text // Using 'inputStream.text' because 'content' will throw an exception when empty.
})
Note, the POST will start when you try to read a value from the HttpURLConnection, such as responseCode, inputStream.text, or getHeaderField('...').