In the Android Manifest file add following permissions,

---------------
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
The App Layout & Views
-----------------------
Main layout is LinearLayout
Three EditTextViews “FirstName, LastName & Age”
One Button to send “post” data to the server.
On button add attribute onclick and corresponds to the java function that is in current Activity

The App Layout for main_activity.xml
<LinearLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_marginLeft="16dp"
android:layout_marginTop="16dp"
android:layout_marginRight="16dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="30dp"
android:orientation="vertical">

<EditText android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:id="@+id/FirstName"
android:layout_height="40dp"
android:hint="First Name"
android:background="#f3f3f3"
android:paddingLeft="5dp"
android:layout_marginTop="30dp"/>
<EditText android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:id="@+id/LastName"
android:layout_height="40dp"
android:hint="Last Name"
android:background="#f3f3f3"
android:paddingLeft="5dp"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"/>
<EditText android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:id="@+id/Age"
android:layout_height="40dp"
android:hint="Age"
android:background="#f3f3f3"
android:paddingLeft="5dp"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:inputType="number"/>

<Button android:layout_width="190dp"
android:layout_height="50dp"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
android:layout_marginTop="16dp"
android:text="Submit"
android:textSize="20sp"
android:id="@+id/userinfo"
android:onClick="senddatatoserver"/>
</LinearLayout>,

Activity

In the activity, create method to do the following:

• Get reference to defined views in layout file.
• Add function in activity that corresponds to layout button in function.
• Get data from referenced views.
• Create JSON object and add data to it with key value pairs.
• Convert JSON object to string and send to Async Network background call thread.

 public class DashboardActivity extends Activity {

    EditText AgeView;
    EditText LastNameView;
    EditText FirstNameView;
    String FirstName;
    String LastName;
    String Age;


    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
       //Get reference to the defined views in layout file

        FirstNameView = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.FirstName);
        LastNameView = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.LastName);
        AgeView = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.Age);


    }

    public void senddatatoserver(View v) {
      //function in the activity that corresponds to the layout button
        FirstName = FirstNameView.getText().toString();
        LastName = LastNameView.getText().toString();
        Age = AgeView.getText().toString();
        JSONObject post_dict = new JSONObject();

        try {
            post_dict.put("firstname" , FirstName);
            post_dict.put("firstname", LastName);
            post_dict.put("firstname", Age);

        } catch (JSONException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        if (post_dict.length() > 0) {
            new SendJsonDataToServer().execute(String.valueOf(post_dict));
            #call to async class
        }
//add background inline class here 
class SendJsonDataToServer extends Async<String,String,String>{
}

}

Async Background Task
Helps in creating the connection in a separate thread so the UI will not freeze.

Do following steps to implement it:

• Create inline class within the activity and extend it from AsyncTask<String,void,String>.
• Override method doInBackground and onPostExecute.
• You may notice AsyncTask has three parameters associated with it <String,void,String>.
• The first one corresponds to the type of parameters passed to doInBackground, the second corresponds to type of parameters passed to onprogressUpdate function, and the third corresponds to type of parameters passed to onpostexecute function.

class SendDataToServer extends AsyncTask <String,String,String>{

    @Override
    protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
        
    }
    

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(String s) {
        }

    }
}

Network call

In the doInBackground do following things.

• Create Url object for your URL.
•  Open url connection from the url object.
•  Set headers and output stream.
• Write data to output stream.
•  Send the POST request.
•  Get response Inputstream, convert it to String and return it.

@Override
protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
    String JsonResponse = null;
    String JsonDATA = params[0];

 HttpURLConnection urlConnection = null;
 BufferedReader reader = null;
 try {
 URL url = new URL("http://appliedinformatics.com/trialx");
 urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
 urlConnection.setDoOutput(true);
 // is output buffer writter
 urlConnection.setRequestMethod("POST");
 urlConnection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/json");
 urlConnection.setRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");
//set headers and method
 Writer writer = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(urlConnection.getOutputStream(), "UTF-8"));
 writer.write(JsonDATA);
// json data
 writer.close();
 InputStream inputStream = urlConnection.getInputStream();
//input stream
 StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
 if (inputStream == null) {
 // Nothing to do.
 return null;
 }
 reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));

 String inputLine;
 while ((inputLine = reader.readLine()) != null)
 buffer.append(inputLine + "\n");
 if (buffer.length() == 0) {
 // Stream was empty. No point in parsing.
 return null;
 }
 JsonResponse = buffer.toString();
//response data
 Log.i(TAG,JsonResponse);
 try {
//send to post execute
 return JsonResponse;
 } catch (JSONException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 }
 return null;



 } catch (IOException e) {
 e.printStackTrace();
 }
 finally {
 if (urlConnection != null) {
 urlConnection.disconnect();
 }
 if (reader != null) {
 try {
 reader.close();
 } catch (final IOException e) {
 Log.e(TAG, "Error closing stream", e);
 }
 }
 }
 return null;
}

We will be posting more blogs on Android. Stay tuned!