Feed from a restful service?

We have a central database (mongo) that has a RESTful front-end built to serve it. The intent is to be able to query that database in order to pull some number of users that exist in a particular environment, then feed that into my scenario.

I’d like to start consuming that database. I need to create a custom feeder that, on instantiation, does an HTTP request to download the data, parse it, and then implements the appropriate interface so that the rest of Gatling can consume the records.

Sounds pretty straight forward on the surface. But I imagine that there are many ways of doing it. I’d love the benefit of your experience about the “best” way of doing it.

Which would be easier, downloading the data as JSON, or as CSV?
Which method of downloading (=library) do you like the best for a simple unconditional GET request?
Anything else I should know or be warned about before I do this?

UrlConnection or AsyncHttpClient (see HttpEngine.instance)
Parse the way you want, doesn’t really matter.