How do you make a HTTP request with C++?
Update 2020: I have a new answer that replaces this, now 8-years-old, one: https://stackoverflow.com/a/61177330/278976
On Linux, I tried cpp-netlib, libcurl, curlpp, urdl, boost::asio and considered Qt (but turned it down based on the license). All of these were either incomplete for this use, had sloppy interfaces, had poor documentation, were unmaintained or didn't support https.
Then, at the suggestion of https://stackoverflow.com/a/1012577/278976, I tried POCO. Wow, I wish I had seen this years ago. Here's an example of making an HTTP GET request with POCO:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/26026828/2817595
POCO is free, open source (boost license). And no, I don't have any affiliation with the company; I just really like their interfaces. Great job guys (and gals).
https://pocoproject.org/download.html
Hope this helps someone... it took me three days to try all of these libraries out.
I had the same problem. libcurl is really complete. There is a C++ wrapper curlpp that might interest you as you ask for a C++ library. neon is another interesting C library that also support WebDAV.
curlpp seems natural if you use C++. There are many examples provided in the source distribution. To get the content of an URL you do something like that (extracted from examples) :
// Edit : rewritten for cURLpp 0.7.3
// Note : namespace changed, was cURLpp in 0.7.2 ...
#include <curlpp/cURLpp.hpp>
#include <curlpp/Options.hpp>
// RAII cleanup
curlpp::Cleanup myCleanup;
// Send request and get a result.
// Here I use a shortcut to get it in a string stream ...
std::ostringstream os;
os << curlpp::options::Url(std::string("http://example.com"));
string asAskedInQuestion = os.str();
See the examples directory in curlpp source distribution, there is a lot of more complex cases, as well as a simple complete minimal one using curlpp.
my 2 cents ...
There is a newer, less mature curl wrapper being developed called C++ Requests. Here's a simple GET request:
#include <iostream>
#include <cpr.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
auto response = cpr::Get(cpr::Url{"http://httpbin.org/get"});
std::cout << response.text << std::endl;
}
It supports a wide variety of HTTP verbs and curl options. There's more usage documentation here.
Disclaimer: I'm the maintainer of this library.
Windows code:
#include <string.h>
#include <winsock2.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <locale>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;
#pragma comment(lib,"ws2_32.lib")
int main( void ){
WSADATA wsaData;
SOCKET Socket;
SOCKADDR_IN SockAddr;
int lineCount=0;
int rowCount=0;
struct hostent *host;
locale local;
char buffer[10000];
int i = 0 ;
int nDataLength;
string website_HTML;
// website url
string url = "www.google.com";
//HTTP GET
string get_http = "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: " + url + "\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n";
if (WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2,2), &wsaData) != 0){
cout << "WSAStartup failed.\n";
system("pause");
//return 1;
}
Socket=socket(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM,IPPROTO_TCP);
host = gethostbyname(url.c_str());
SockAddr.sin_port=htons(80);
SockAddr.sin_family=AF_INET;
SockAddr.sin_addr.s_addr = *((unsigned long*)host->h_addr);
if(connect(Socket,(SOCKADDR*)(&SockAddr),sizeof(SockAddr)) != 0){
cout << "Could not connect";
system("pause");
//return 1;
}
// send GET / HTTP
send(Socket,get_http.c_str(), strlen(get_http.c_str()),0 );
// recieve html
while ((nDataLength = recv(Socket,buffer,10000,0)) > 0){
int i = 0;
while (buffer[i] >= 32 || buffer[i] == '\n' || buffer[i] == '\r'){
website_HTML+=buffer[i];
i += 1;
}
}
closesocket(Socket);
WSACleanup();
// Display HTML source
cout<<website_HTML;
// pause
cout<<"\n\nPress ANY key to close.\n\n";
cin.ignore(); cin.get();
return 0;
}
Here is a much better implementation:
#include <windows.h>
#include <string>
#include <stdio.h>
using std::string;
#pragma comment(lib,"ws2_32.lib")
HINSTANCE hInst;
WSADATA wsaData;
void mParseUrl(char *mUrl, string &serverName, string &filepath, string &filename);
SOCKET connectToServer(char *szServerName, WORD portNum);
int getHeaderLength(char *content);
char *readUrl2(char *szUrl, long &bytesReturnedOut, char **headerOut);
int main()
{
const int bufLen = 1024;
char *szUrl = "http://stackoverflow.com";
long fileSize;
char *memBuffer, *headerBuffer;
FILE *fp;
memBuffer = headerBuffer = NULL;
if ( WSAStartup(0x101, &wsaData) != 0)
return -1;
memBuffer = readUrl2(szUrl, fileSize, &headerBuffer);
printf("returned from readUrl\n");
printf("data returned:\n%s", memBuffer);
if (fileSize != 0)
{
printf("Got some data\n");
fp = fopen("downloaded.file", "wb");
fwrite(memBuffer, 1, fileSize, fp);
fclose(fp);
delete(memBuffer);
delete(headerBuffer);
}
WSACleanup();
return 0;
}
void mParseUrl(char *mUrl, string &serverName, string &filepath, string &filename)
{
string::size_type n;
string url = mUrl;
if (url.substr(0,7) == "http://")
url.erase(0,7);
if (url.substr(0,8) == "https://")
url.erase(0,8);
n = url.find('/');
if (n != string::npos)
{
serverName = url.substr(0,n);
filepath = url.substr(n);
n = filepath.rfind('/');
filename = filepath.substr(n+1);
}
else
{
serverName = url;
filepath = "/";
filename = "";
}
}
SOCKET connectToServer(char *szServerName, WORD portNum)
{
struct hostent *hp;
unsigned int addr;
struct sockaddr_in server;
SOCKET conn;
conn = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
if (conn == INVALID_SOCKET)
return NULL;
if(inet_addr(szServerName)==INADDR_NONE)
{
hp=gethostbyname(szServerName);
}
else
{
addr=inet_addr(szServerName);
hp=gethostbyaddr((char*)&addr,sizeof(addr),AF_INET);
}
if(hp==NULL)
{
closesocket(conn);
return NULL;
}
server.sin_addr.s_addr=*((unsigned long*)hp->h_addr);
server.sin_family=AF_INET;
server.sin_port=htons(portNum);
if(connect(conn,(struct sockaddr*)&server,sizeof(server)))
{
closesocket(conn);
return NULL;
}
return conn;
}
int getHeaderLength(char *content)
{
const char *srchStr1 = "\r\n\r\n", *srchStr2 = "\n\r\n\r";
char *findPos;
int ofset = -1;
findPos = strstr(content, srchStr1);
if (findPos != NULL)
{
ofset = findPos - content;
ofset += strlen(srchStr1);
}
else
{
findPos = strstr(content, srchStr2);
if (findPos != NULL)
{
ofset = findPos - content;
ofset += strlen(srchStr2);
}
}
return ofset;
}
char *readUrl2(char *szUrl, long &bytesReturnedOut, char **headerOut)
{
const int bufSize = 512;
char readBuffer[bufSize], sendBuffer[bufSize], tmpBuffer[bufSize];
char *tmpResult=NULL, *result;
SOCKET conn;
string server, filepath, filename;
long totalBytesRead, thisReadSize, headerLen;
mParseUrl(szUrl, server, filepath, filename);
///////////// step 1, connect //////////////////////
conn = connectToServer((char*)server.c_str(), 80);
///////////// step 2, send GET request /////////////
sprintf(tmpBuffer, "GET %s HTTP/1.0", filepath.c_str());
strcpy(sendBuffer, tmpBuffer);
strcat(sendBuffer, "\r\n");
sprintf(tmpBuffer, "Host: %s", server.c_str());
strcat(sendBuffer, tmpBuffer);
strcat(sendBuffer, "\r\n");
strcat(sendBuffer, "\r\n");
send(conn, sendBuffer, strlen(sendBuffer), 0);
// SetWindowText(edit3Hwnd, sendBuffer);
printf("Buffer being sent:\n%s", sendBuffer);
///////////// step 3 - get received bytes ////////////////
// Receive until the peer closes the connection
totalBytesRead = 0;
while(1)
{
memset(readBuffer, 0, bufSize);
thisReadSize = recv (conn, readBuffer, bufSize, 0);
if ( thisReadSize <= 0 )
break;
tmpResult = (char*)realloc(tmpResult, thisReadSize+totalBytesRead);
memcpy(tmpResult+totalBytesRead, readBuffer, thisReadSize);
totalBytesRead += thisReadSize;
}
headerLen = getHeaderLength(tmpResult);
long contenLen = totalBytesRead-headerLen;
result = new char[contenLen+1];
memcpy(result, tmpResult+headerLen, contenLen);
result[contenLen] = 0x0;
char *myTmp;
myTmp = new char[headerLen+1];
strncpy(myTmp, tmpResult, headerLen);
myTmp[headerLen] = NULL;
delete(tmpResult);
*headerOut = myTmp;
bytesReturnedOut = contenLen;
closesocket(conn);
return(result);
}