How to clear HTTP from Java?

I am trying to perform purge using httpurlconnection as follows:

private void callVarnish(URL url) {
    HttpURLConnection conn = null;

    try {
        conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        conn.setRequestMethod(PURGE_METHOD);
        conn.setDoOutput(true);
        conn.setInstanceFollowRedirects(true);
        conn.setRequestProperty("Host","www.somehost.com");
        conn.connect();
        System.out.print(conn.getResponseCode() + " " + conn.getResponseMessage());
     }
     catch (Exception e) {
         log.error("Could not call varnish: " + e);
     } finally {
         if (conn != null) {
             conn.disconnect();
         }
     }
}

But I got:

08:56:31,813 ERROR [VarnishHandler] Could not call varnish: java.net.ProtocolException: Invalid HTTP method: PURGE

Curl is OK:

Curl - I - x purge - H "Moderator: www.somehost. Com" someurl

HTTP/1.1 404 Not in cache.
Server: Varnish
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Retry-After: 5
Content-Length: 401
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Date: Thu,18 Oct 2012 06:40:19 GMT
X-Varnish: 1611365598
Age: 0
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: close
X-Cache: MISS

What should I do? Do I need to curl from Java or are there other libraries I can use?

Solution

You can use Apache's httpclient Library: http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/

You can use basichttprequest or implement your own httppurge class that extends httprequestbase

You can find a quick start guide here: http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/quickstart.html

Example:

DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
BasicHttpRequest httpPurge = new BasicHttpRequest("PURGE","www.somehost.com") 
HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpPurge);