[HTTPCLIENT-929] Request with two forward slashes for path fails

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 4.0.1
• Fix Version/s: 4.1 Alpha2
• Component/s: HttpClient (classic)
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Ryan Stewart
• Created: 02/Apr/10 13:47
• Updated: 02/Mar/11 23:11
• Resolved: 03/Apr/10 18:24

Description

The following code demonstrates the problem:
DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
client.execute(new HttpGet("http://www.google.com//"));

When a request is made, the DefaultRequestDirector invokes rewriteRequestURI(). I don't fully understand why this method does what it does. For a non-proxied request, it attempts to render the URI to a relative URI. In doing so, it tries to create a relative URI whose content is "//". Per RFC 2396 section 5 (Relative URI References), a relative URI that begins with "//" is a network-path reference, and the "//" must be immediately followed by an authority. Therefore, while "http://www.google.com//" is a valid absolute URI, "//" is not a valid relative one. The resulting exception:

[...]
Caused by: org.apache.http.ProtocolException: Invalid URI: http://www.google.com//
at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.rewriteRequestURI(DefaultRequestDirector.java:339)
at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:434)
at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:641)
... 31 more
Caused by: java.net.URISyntaxException: Expected authority at index 2: //
at java.net.URI$Parser.fail(URI.java:2809)
at java.net.URI$Parser.failExpecting(URI.java:2815)
at java.net.URI$Parser.parseHierarchical(URI.java:3063)
at java.net.URI$Parser.parse(URI.java:3024)
at java.net.URI.<init>(URI.java:578)
at org.apache.http.client.utils.URIUtils.createURI(URIUtils.java:106)
at org.apache.http.client.utils.URIUtils.rewriteURI(URIUtils.java:141)
at org.apache.http.client.utils.URIUtils.rewriteURI(URIUtils.java:159)
at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.rewriteRequestURI(DefaultRequestDirector.java:333)
... 33 more

Issue Links

• relates to: HTTPCLIENT-1066 HTTPClient 4.1 auto slash removal