Make a HEAD Request

 /**
 * This script allows you to retrieve a specific HTTP header
 * from a server, such as the content-length (i.e., the size
 * of the file).
 */
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.*;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.*;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.params.HttpMethodParams;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.contrib.ssl.EasySSLProtocolSocketFactory;

urlString = "http://www.google.com/";

// Create a method instance.
HeadMethod method = new HeadMethod( urlString );

// Provide custom retry handler is necessary
method.getParams().setParameter
(
  HttpMethodParams.RETRY_HANDLER,
  new DefaultHttpMethodRetryHandler( 3, false )
);

try
{
 HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

 session.setProxySettingsOnHttpClient( client, client.getHostConfiguration() );

 try
 {
 HostConfiguration hostConfiguration = new HostConfiguration();
 URL url = new URL( urlString );
 if( url.toString().startsWith( "https" ) )
 {
 Protocol easyHTTPS = new Protocol( "https", new EasySSLProtocolSocketFactory(), 443 );
 hostConfiguration.setHost( url.getHost(), 443, easyHTTPS );
 }
 else
 {
 hostConfiguration.setHost( url.getHost() );
 }
 }
 catch( MalformedURLException mfue )
 {
 session.logError( "MalformedURLException: " + mfue, mfue );
 }

 // Execute the method.
 int statusCode = client.executeMethod( method );

 if( statusCode!=HttpStatus.SC_OK )
 {
 session.logError( "Error received status code: " + statusCode );
 }

 // Retrieve just the last modified header value.
 String contentLength = method.getResponseHeader( "Content-Length" ).getValue();

 session.log( "Content length: " + contentLength );
}
catch( Exception e )
{
 session.logError( "An exception occurred: " + e.getMessage() );
}
finally
{
  // Release the connection.
  method.releaseConnection();
}