JUnit - Test HTTPClient using Maven Project

Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025

HTTP Client can provide synchronous and asynchronous request mechanisms via the following three core classes:

HttpRequest: Request that needs to be sent via the HttpClient.
HttpClient: It is a container for multiple requests.
HttpResponse: All requests need to complete the cycle and provide the result as HttpResponse. Each response is identified with the status codes like

200 -> Response obtained and it is OK means everything is correct
404 -> Requested page or element not available in the mentioned URL
401 -> Unauthorized

In this tutorial let us see some of the ways to test a httpClient that contains headers and SSL.

Example Project

Project Structure:

As this is a maven project, dependencies are added in pom.xml

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="https://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="https://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
                        https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <artifactId>httpclient-sampletesting</artifactId>
    <version>0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>httpclient-sampletesting</name>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <parent>
        <groupId>com.gfg</groupId>
        <artifactId>parent-spring-5</artifactId>
        <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <relativePath>../parent-spring-5</relativePath>
    </parent>

    <dependencies>
       
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpcore</artifactId>
            <version>${httpcore.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
                    <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <!-- utils -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
            <version>${commons-lang3.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <!-- http client -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
            <version>${httpclient.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
                    <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>fluent-hc</artifactId>
            <version>${httpclient.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
                    <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpmime</artifactId>
            <version>${httpclient.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
            <version>${commons-codec.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpasyncclient</artifactId>
            <version>${httpasyncclient.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
                    <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.github.tomakehurst</groupId>
            <artifactId>wiremock</artifactId>
            <version>${wiremock.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- web -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>${javax.servlet-api.version}</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
            <version>${jstl.version}</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
       
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <finalName>httpclient-simple</finalName>
        <resources>
            <resource>
                <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
                <filtering>true</filtering>
            </resource>
        </resources>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${maven-war-plugin.version}</version>
            </plugin>
           
            <!-- This should be added to overcome Could not initialize
                  class org.apache.maven.plugin.war.util.WebappStructureSerializer -->
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.3.2</version>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <profiles>
        <profile>
            <id>live</id>
            <build>
                <plugins>

                    <plugin>
                        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                        <executions>
                            <execution>
                                <phase>integration-test</phase>
                                <goals>
                                    <goal>test</goal>
                                </goals>
                                <configuration>
                                    <excludes>
                                        <exclude>none</exclude>
                                    </excludes>

  
                                </configuration>
                            </execution>
                        </executions>
                    </plugin>
                </plugins>
            </build>
        </profile>
    </profiles>

    <properties>
        <!-- util -->
        <commons-codec.version>1.10</commons-codec.version>
        <httpasyncclient.version>4.1.4</httpasyncclient.version>
        <!-- testing -->
        <wiremock.version>2.5.1</wiremock.version>
        <httpcore.version>4.4.11</httpcore.version>
        <httpclient.version>4.5.8</httpclient.version>
        <!-- maven plugins -->
        <cargo-maven2-plugin.version>1.6.1</cargo-maven2-plugin.version>
    </properties>

</project>

From HttpClient 4.3, requests can be built by using RequestBuilder. HTTP header can be added as mentioned in the below lines of code. Sample of creation of RequestBuilder and usage with content type

Java

CloseableHttpClient httpClient = HttpClients.custom().build();
final HttpGet request = new HttpGet(GFG_URL);
request.setHeader(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json");
httpResponse = httpClient.execute(request);

Before HttpClient 4.3, we need to depend on the below kind of code. Any custom header can be set on a request by a simple setHeader call on the request:

Java

HttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpGet getRequest = new HttpGet(GFG_URL);
request.setHeader(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json");
httpClient.execute(getRequest);

Let us see the whole java test code for the versions from HttpClient version 4.3 onwards. Let us check out ResponseUtil.java as it is getting used

ResponseUtil.java

Java

import org.apache.http.HttpEntity;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.CloseableHttpResponse;
import java.io.IOException;

public final class ResponseUtil {
    private ResponseUtil() {
    }

    public static void closeResponse(CloseableHttpResponse response) throws IOException {
        if (response == null) {
            return;
        }

        try {
            final HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity();
            if (entity != null) {
                entity.getContent().close();
            }
        } finally {
            response.close();
        }
    }
}

SampleHttpClientHeadersUnitTest.java

Here we are passing the "GeeksforGeeks" URL as request by using headers

Java

import com.google.common.collect.Lists;
import org.apache.http.Header;
import org.apache.http.HttpHeaders;
import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.CloseableHttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpUriRequest;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.RequestBuilder;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClientBuilder;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClients;
import org.apache.http.message.BasicHeader;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;

import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.equalTo;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;

public class SampleHttpClientHeadersUnitTest {

    private static final String GFG_URL = "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/";
    private CloseableHttpClient httpClient;
    private CloseableHttpResponse httpResponse;

    @Before
    public final void before() {
        httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().build();
    }

    @After
    public final void after() throws IllegalStateException, IOException {
        ResponseUtil.closeResponse(httpResponse);
    }

    // tests - headers - deprecated
    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheck() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        httpClient = HttpClients.custom().setUserAgent("Mozilla/5.0 Firefox/26.0").build();

        final HttpGet getRequest = new HttpGet(GFG_URL);
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(getRequest);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    // tests - headers - user agent
    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheckWithConfig() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        httpClient = HttpClients.custom().build();
        final HttpGet request = new HttpGet(GFG_URL);
        request.setHeader(HttpHeaders.USER_AGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 Firefox/26.0");
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(request);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheckWithConfig1() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        httpClient = HttpClients.custom().setUserAgent("Mozilla/5.0 Firefox/26.0").build();
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(new HttpGet(GFG_URL));
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    // tests - headers - content type
    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheckWithContentType() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        httpClient = HttpClients.custom().build();
        final HttpGet request = new HttpGet(GFG_URL);
        request.setHeader(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json");
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(request);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheckWithContentType1() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        final CloseableHttpClient client2 = HttpClients.custom().build();
        final HttpGet request = new HttpGet(GFG_URL);
        request.setHeader(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json");
        httpResponse = client2.execute(request);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheckWithContentType2() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        httpClient = HttpClients.custom().build();
        final HttpUriRequest request = RequestBuilder.get().setUri(GFG_URL).setHeader(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json").build();
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(request);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    @Test
    public final void usageOfCustomUserAgentCheckWithContentType3() throws ClientProtocolException, IOException {
        final Header header = new BasicHeader(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "application/json");
        final List<Header> headers = Lists.newArrayList(header);
        httpClient = HttpClients.custom().setDefaultHeaders(headers).build();
        final HttpUriRequest request = RequestBuilder.get().setUri(GFG_URL).build();
        httpResponse = httpClient.execute(request);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
                .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

}

Output on running as JUnit:

Next, let us see how to configure the Apache HttpClient 4 with SSL support. Instead of going as automated testing, let it be manually run as usual for any secured site, valid certificate is needed but in order to demonstrate how an SSL Live site can be tested via HttpClient, is shown without considering the certificate.

SampleHttpsClientSslLiveTest.java

Java

import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.equalTo;
import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.security.GeneralSecurityException;

import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException;

import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpGet;
import org.apache.http.config.Registry;
import org.apache.http.config.RegistryBuilder;
import org.apache.http.conn.socket.ConnectionSocketFactory;
import org.apache.http.conn.ssl.NoopHostnameVerifier;
import org.apache.http.conn.ssl.SSLConnectionSocketFactory;
import org.apache.http.conn.ssl.TrustStrategy;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.CloseableHttpClient;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClientBuilder;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.HttpClients;
import org.apache.http.impl.conn.PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager;
import org.apache.http.ssl.SSLContextBuilder;
import org.apache.http.ssl.SSLContexts;
import org.junit.Test;

public class SampleHttpsClientSslLiveTest {

    private static final String SSL_HOST_URL = "https://github.com/";

    // tests
    @Test(expected = SSLHandshakeException.class)
    public final void checkForHttpsUrl() throws IOException {
        final CloseableHttpClient httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create()
            .build();

        final HttpGet getMethod = new HttpGet(SSL_HOST_URL);
        final HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(getMethod);
        assertThat(response.getStatusLine()
            .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

    @Test
    public final void checkForHttpsUrl1WithCertificate() throws IOException, GeneralSecurityException {
        final TrustStrategy acceptingTrustStrategy = (certificate, authType) -> true;
        
        final SSLContext sslContext = SSLContexts.custom()
                .loadTrustMaterial(null, acceptingTrustStrategy)
                .build();

        final SSLConnectionSocketFactory sslsocketFactory = new SSLConnectionSocketFactory(sslContext, NoopHostnameVerifier.INSTANCE);
        Registry<ConnectionSocketFactory> socketFactoryRegistry = RegistryBuilder.<ConnectionSocketFactory> create().register("https", sslsocketFactory).build();
        PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager clientConnectionManager = new PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager(socketFactoryRegistry);

        final CloseableHttpClient closeableHttpClient = HttpClients.custom()
                .setSSLSocketFactory(sslsocketFactory)
                .setConnectionManager(clientConnectionManager)
                .build();

        final HttpGet httpGetMethod = new HttpGet(SSL_HOST_URL);
        final HttpResponse httpResponse = closeableHttpClient.execute(httpGetMethod);
        assertThat(httpResponse.getStatusLine()
            .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));

        closeableHttpClient.close();
    }

    
    @Test
    public final void checkForHttpsUrlByIgnoringCertificate() throws Exception {
        final SSLContext sslContext = new SSLContextBuilder().loadTrustMaterial(null, (certificate, authType) -> true)
            .build();

        final CloseableHttpClient client = HttpClients.custom()
            .setSSLContext(sslContext)
            .setSSLHostnameVerifier(new NoopHostnameVerifier())
            .build();
        final HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(SSL_HOST_URL);
        httpGet.setHeader("Accept", "application/xml");

        final HttpResponse response = client.execute(httpGet);
        assertThat(response.getStatusLine()
            .getStatusCode(), equalTo(200));
    }

}

On running the above code, we will see

Conclusion

Always it is good to write test cases for any scenario in the software lifecycle. We may need to interact with any website URL at any point in time or retrieve the information from it. In Java, using HttpClient can be handled wisely it can be handled by using the test cases above.

What is Software Testing?

priyarajtt

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