A connection to a URL for reading or writing. For HTTP connections, see Java.Net.HttpURLConnection for documentation of HTTP-specific features.

For example, to retrieve ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/index.html:

URL url = new URL("ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/index.html");
   URLConnection urlConnection = url.openConnection();
   InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(urlConnection.getInputStream());
   try {
     readStream(in);
    finally {
     in.close();
   }
 }

URLConnection must be configured before it has connected to the remote resource. Instances of URLConnection are not reusable: you must use a different instance for each connection to a resource.

Timeouts

Built-in Protocols

• File
  
  Resources from the local file system can be loaded using file: URIs. File connections can only be used for input.
• FTP
  
  File Transfer Protocol () is supported, but with no public subclass. FTP connections can be used for input or output but not both. By default, FTP connections will be made using anonymous as the username and the empty string as the password. Specify alternate usernames and passwords in the URL: ftp://username:password@host/path.
• HTTP and HTTPS
  
  Refer to the Java.Net.HttpURLConnection and Javax.Net.Ssl.HttpsURLConnection subclasses.
• Jar
  
  Refer to the Java.Net.JarURLConnection subclass.

Registering Additional Protocols

[Android Documentation]