public abstract class ContentHandler extends Object
ContentHandler is the superclass
 of all classes that read an Object from a
 URLConnection.
 
 An application does not generally call the
 getContent method in this class directly. Instead, an
 application calls the getContent method in class
 URL or in URLConnection.
 The application's content handler factory (an instance of a class that
 implements the interface ContentHandlerFactory set
 up by a call to setContentHandler) is
 called with a String giving the MIME type of the
 object being received on the socket. The factory returns an
 instance of a subclass of ContentHandler, and its
 getContent method is called to create the object.
 
If no content handler could be found, URLConnection will look for a content handler in a user-defineable set of places. By default it looks in sun.net.www.content, but users can define a vertical-bar delimited set of class prefixes to search through in addition by defining the java.content.handler.pkgs property. The class name must be of the form:
     {package-prefix}.{major}.{minor}
 e.g.
     YoyoDyne.experimental.text.plain
 
 If the loading of the content handler class would be performed by
 a classloader that is outside of the delegation chain of the caller,
 the JVM will need the RuntimePermission "getClassLoader".| Constructor and Description | 
|---|
| ContentHandler() | 
| Modifier and Type | Method and Description | 
|---|---|
| abstract Object | getContent(URLConnection urlc)Given a URL connect stream positioned at the beginning of the
 representation of an object, this method reads that stream and
 creates an object from it. | 
| Object | getContent(URLConnection urlc,
          Class[] classes)Given a URL connect stream positioned at the beginning of the
 representation of an object, this method reads that stream and
 creates an object that matches one of the types specified. | 
public abstract Object getContent(URLConnection urlc) throws IOException
urlc - a URL connection.ContentHandler.IOException - if an I/O error occurs while reading the object.public Object getContent(URLConnection urlc, Class[] classes) throws IOException
urlc - a URL connection.classes - an array of types requestedContentHandler that is
                 the first match of the suggested types.
                 null if none of the requested  are supported.IOException - if an I/O error occurs while reading the object. Submit a bug or feature 
For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java SE Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.
 Copyright © 1993, 2025, Oracle and/or its affiliates.  All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms. Also see the documentation redistribution policy.