How to use Apache Httpget in Clojure

Clojure's slurp function is great for quick retrieval of websites, but sometimes it's not enough and you'll get an 403 error.

As a quick fix I suggest using the Apache httpclient library. You will need httpclient-4.x.x.jar, httpcore-4.x.x.jar and commons-logging-1.x.x.jar in your classpath, which you can find here:

• http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/httpclient/index.html
• http://commons.apache.org/logging/ 
• http://hc.apache.org/ 

 The function http-get is a simple replacement for slurp. You can easily extend, e.g. adding timeouts, etc.

(ns apache-http
  (:import
   (org.apache.http.client ResponseHandler HttpClient methods.HttpGet)
   (org.apache.http.impl.client BasicResponseHandler DefaultHttpClient)))

(defn http-get [ url ]
  (let [client (DefaultHttpClient.)
        httpget (HttpGet. url)
        handler (BasicResponseHandler.)]
    (try 
      (let [body (.execute client httpget handler)]
        body)
      (catch Exception e (println e))
      (finally
        (println "shutdown connection")
        (.shutdown (.getConnectionManager client))
        )) ))

usage is simple:

(http-get "http://www.google.com")