NameValuePair, HttpParams, HttpConnection Params deprecated on server request class for login app

Question

First time asking a question here, and new to android programming. I'm following an online youtube tutorial to create a login by user "Tonikami TV". Everything is fine with the app except when it comes to the serverRequests class. I get that NameValuePair, HttpParams, etc. are deprecated which I understand to be outdated and unsupported since API 22. I've searched for some fixed or alternatives but can't really make sense of them and how I would apply them to my code. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :)

    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
        ArrayList<NameValuePair> dataToSend = new ArrayList<>();
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("firstname", user.FirstName));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("lastname", user.LastName));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("age", user.Age + ""));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("emailaddress", user.EmailAddress));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("password", user.Password));

        //possible alternative code found on stack overflow don't know exactly what to do from here.
        ContentValues values= new ContentValues();
        values.put("firstname", user.FirstName);
        values.put("lastname", user.LastName);
        values.put("age", user.Age + "");
        values.put("emailaddress",user.EmailAddress);
        values.put("password",user.Password);
        //

        HttpParams httpRequestParams = new BasicHttpParams();
        HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpRequestParams, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);
        HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpRequestParams, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);

        HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(httpRequestParams);
        HttpClient post = new HttpPost(SERVER_ADDRESS + "Register.php");

        try{
            post.setEntity(new URLEncoderFormEntity(dataToSend));
            client.execute(post);
        }catch (Exception e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }




        return null;
    }

Here is the entire code in the ServerRequests class. Apologies if its rather long.

public class ServerRequests {

ProgressDialog progressDialog;
public static final int CONNECTION_TIMEOUT = 1000 * 15;
public static  final String SERVER_ADDRESS = "http://lok8.hostingsiteforfree.com";

public  ServerRequests(Context context){
    progressDialog = new ProgressDialog(context);
    progressDialog.setCancelable(false);
    progressDialog.setTitle("Processing");
    progressDialog.setMessage("Please Wait...");

}

public void storeUserDataInBackground(User user, GetUserCallback userCallback){
    progressDialog.show();
    new StoreUserDataAsyncTask(user,userCallback).execute();
}

public void fetchUserDataInBackground(User user, GetUserCallback callback) {
    progressDialog.show();
    new fetchUserDataAsyncTask(user, callback).execute();

}

public class StoreUserDataAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>{
    User user;
    GetUserCallback userCallback;

    public StoreUserDataAsyncTask(User user, GetUserCallback userCallback){
        this.user = user;
        this.userCallback = userCallback;
    }

    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
        ArrayList<NameValuePair> dataToSend = new ArrayList<>();
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("firstname", user.FirstName));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("lastname", user.LastName));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("age", user.Age + ""));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("emailaddress", user.EmailAddress));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("password", user.Password));

        //possible alternative code found on stack overflow don't know exactly what to do from here.
        ContentValues values= new ContentValues();
        values.put("firstname", user.FirstName);
        values.put("lastname", user.LastName);
        values.put("age", user.Age + "");
        values.put("emailaddress",user.EmailAddress);
        values.put("password",user.Password);
        //

        HttpParams httpRequestParams = new BasicHttpParams();
        HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpRequestParams, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);
        HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpRequestParams, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);

        HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(httpRequestParams);
        HttpClient post = new HttpPost(SERVER_ADDRESS + "Register.php");

        try{
            post.setEntity(new URLEncoderFormEntity(dataToSend));
            client.execute(post);
        }catch (Exception e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }




        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(Void aVoid) {
        progressDialog.dismiss();
        userCallback.done(null);

        super.onPostExecute(aVoid);
    }
}

public class fetchUserDataAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, User> {
    User user;
    GetUserCallback userCallback;

    public fetchUserDataAsyncTask(User user, GetUserCallback userCallback) {
        this.user = user;
        this.userCallback = userCallback;
    }

    @Override
    protected User doInBackground(Void... params) {
        ArrayList<NameValuePair> dataToSend = new ArrayList<>();

        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("emailaddress", user.EmailAddress));
        dataToSend.add(new BasicNameValuePair("password", user.Password));

        HttpParams httpRequestParams = new BasicHttpParams();
        HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpRequestParams, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);
        HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpRequestParams, CONNECTION_TIMEOUT);

        HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(httpRequestParams);
        HttpClient post = new HttpPost(SERVER_ADDRESS + "FetchUserData.php");

        User returnedUser = null;
        try{
            post.setEntity(new URLEncoderFormEntity(dataToSend));
            HttpResponse httpResponse = client.execute(post);

            HttpEntity entity = httpResponse.getEntity();
            String result = EntityUtils.toString(entity);
            JSONObject jObject = new JSONObject(result);

            if(jObject.length()== 0){
                returnedUser = null;
            } else {
                String firstname = jObject.getString("firstname");
                String lastname = jObject.getString("lastname");
                int age = jObject.getInt("age");

                returnedUser = new User(firstname, lastname, age, user.FirstName, user.LastName, user.Age);
            }

        }catch (Exception e){
            e.printStackTrace();
        }



        return returnedUser;
    }
    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(User returnedUser) {
        progressDialog.dismiss();
        userCallback.done(returnedUser);

        super.onPostExecute(returnedUser);
    }
   }

}

Answer 1

You can use the following code which uses the standard java and android methods

 @Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
    //Use HashMap, it works similar to NameValuePair
    Map<String,String> dataToSend = new HashMap<>();
    dataToSend.put("firstname", user.FirstName);
    dataToSend.put("lastname", user.LastName);
    dataToSend.put("age", user.Age + "");
    dataToSend.put("emailaddress", user.EmailAddress);
    dataToSend.put("password", user.Password);

    //Server Communication part - it's relatively long but uses standard methods

    //Encoded String - we will have to encode string by our custom method (Very easy)
    String encodedStr = getEncodedData(dataToSend);

    //Will be used if we want to read some data from server
    BufferedReader reader = null;

    //Connection Handling
    try {
        //Converting address String to URL
        URL url = new URL(SERVER_ADDRESS + "Register.php");
        //Opening the connection (Not setting or using CONNECTION_TIMEOUT)
        HttpURLConnection con = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

        //Post Method
        con.setRequestMethod("POST");
        //To enable inputting values using POST method 
        //(Basically, after this we can write the dataToSend to the body of POST method)
        con.setDoOutput(true);
        OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(con.getOutputStream());
        //Writing dataToSend to outputstreamwriter
        writer.write(encodedStr);
        //Sending the data to the server - This much is enough to send data to server
        //But to read the response of the server, you will have to implement the procedure below
        writer.flush();

        //Data Read Procedure - Basically reading the data comming line by line
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(con.getInputStream()));

        String line;
        while((line = reader.readLine()) != null) { //Read till there is something available
            sb.append(line + "\n");     //Reading and saving line by line - not all at once
        }
        line = sb.toString();           //Saving complete data received in string, you can do it differently

        //Just check to the values received in Logcat
        Log.i("custom_check","The values received in the store part are as follows:");
        Log.i("custom_check",line);

    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
        if(reader != null) {
            try {
                reader.close();     //Closing the 
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }

    //Same return null, but if you want to return the read string (stored in line)
    //then change the parameters of AsyncTask and return that type, by converting
    //the string - to say JSON or user in your case
    return null;
}

The getEncodedData method (Simple to understand)

private String getEncodedData(Map<String,String> data) {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        for(String key : data.keySet()) {
            String value = null;
            try {
                value = URLEncoder.encode(data.get(key),"UTF-8");
            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }

            if(sb.length()>0)
                sb.append("&");

            sb.append(key + "=" + value);
        }
        return sb.toString();
    }