public static String request(String url) throws IOException{

  URL obj = new URL(url);
  HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) obj.openConnection();

  connection.setRequestMethod("GET");

  BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new       InputStreamReader (connection.getInputStream()));
  String inputLine;
  StringBuffer response = new StringBuffer();

  inputLine = in.readLine();
  response.append(inputLine);
  in.close();
  String actual = response.toString().trim();
  return actual;
 }