I was brushing off my Java skills the other day. It's been a little while and I ran into a task I could not, from memory, recall how to write. So I turned to Google and quickly came up with this post from 1996(!) on the subject:

From: Lawrence Page



I have a web robot which is a Java app. I need to be able to set the User-Agent field in the HTTP header in order to be a good net citizen (so people know who is accessing their server). Anyone have any ideas?



Right now, Java sends a request that includes something like:



User-Agent: Java/1.0beta2



I'd rather not rewrite all the HTTP stuff myself. I tried just searching in the JDK for the Java/1.0beta2 figuring I could just change the string, but I couldn't find it. Perhaps it is stored as a unicode string?



An easy method of setting the User-Agent field should probably be added to Java, so people can properly identify their programs.



Thanks, Larry Page

Hmm, I wonder what kind of "web robot" this Larry Page was working on and hope his project was successful!

Does it bode well for me that I ran into the same question?