How do you make a HTTP request with C++?

Question

Is there any way to easily make a HTTP request with C++? Specifically, I want to download the contents of a page (an API) and check the contents to see if it contains a 1 o

Answer 1

With this answer I refer to the answer from Software_Developer. By rebuilding the code I found that some parts are deprecated (gethostbyname()) or do not provide error handling (creation of sockets, sending something) for an operation.

The following windows code is tested with Visual Studio 2013 and Windows 8.1 64-bit as well as Windows 7 64-bit. It will target an IPv4 TCP Connection with the Web Server of www.google.com.

#include <winsock2.h>
#include <WS2tcpip.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#pragma comment(lib,"ws2_32.lib")
using namespace std;
    int main (){
    // Initialize Dependencies to the Windows Socket.
    WSADATA wsaData;
    if (WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2,2), &wsaData) != 0) {
        cout << "WSAStartup failed.\n";
        system("pause");
        return -1;
    }

    // We first prepare some "hints" for the "getaddrinfo" function
    // to tell it, that we are looking for a IPv4 TCP Connection.
    struct addrinfo hints;
    ZeroMemory(&hints, sizeof(hints));
    hints.ai_family = AF_INET;          // We are targeting IPv4
    hints.ai_protocol = IPPROTO_TCP;    // We are targeting TCP
    hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_STREAM;    // We are targeting TCP so its SOCK_STREAM

    // Aquiring of the IPv4 address of a host using the newer
    // "getaddrinfo" function which outdated "gethostbyname".
    // It will search for IPv4 addresses using the TCP-Protocol.
    struct addrinfo* targetAdressInfo = NULL;
    DWORD getAddrRes = getaddrinfo("www.google.com", NULL, &hints, &targetAdressInfo);
    if (getAddrRes != 0 || targetAdressInfo == NULL)
    {
        cout << "Could not resolve the Host Name" << endl;
        system("pause");
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }

    // Create the Socket Address Informations, using IPv4
    // We dont have to take care of sin_zero, it is only used to extend the length of SOCKADDR_IN to the size of SOCKADDR
    SOCKADDR_IN sockAddr;
    sockAddr.sin_addr = ((struct sockaddr_in*) targetAdressInfo->ai_addr)->sin_addr;    // The IPv4 Address from the Address Resolution Result
    sockAddr.sin_family = AF_INET;  // IPv4
    sockAddr.sin_port = htons(80);  // HTTP Port: 80

    // We have to free the Address-Information from getaddrinfo again
    freeaddrinfo(targetAdressInfo);

    // Creation of a socket for the communication with the Web Server,
    // using IPv4 and the TCP-Protocol
    SOCKET webSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
    if (webSocket == INVALID_SOCKET)
    {
        cout << "Creation of the Socket Failed" << endl;
        system("pause");
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }

    // Establishing a connection to the web Socket
    cout << "Connecting...\n";
    if(connect(webSocket, (SOCKADDR*)&sockAddr, sizeof(sockAddr)) != 0)
    {
        cout << "Could not connect";
        system("pause");
        closesocket(webSocket);
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }
    cout << "Connected.\n";

    // Sending a HTTP-GET-Request to the Web Server
    const char* httpRequest = "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: www.google.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n";
    int sentBytes = send(webSocket, httpRequest, strlen(httpRequest),0);
    if (sentBytes < strlen(httpRequest) || sentBytes == SOCKET_ERROR)
    {
        cout << "Could not send the request to the Server" << endl;
        system("pause");
        closesocket(webSocket);
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }

    // Receiving and Displaying an answer from the Web Server
    char buffer[10000];
    ZeroMemory(buffer, sizeof(buffer));
    int dataLen;
    while ((dataLen = recv(webSocket, buffer, sizeof(buffer), 0) > 0))
    {
        int i = 0;
        while (buffer[i] >= 32 || buffer[i] == '\n' || buffer[i] == '\r') {
            cout << buffer[i];
            i += 1;
        }
    }

    // Cleaning up Windows Socket Dependencies
    closesocket(webSocket);
    WSACleanup();

    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

References:

Deprecation of gethostbyname

Return Value of socket()

Return Value of send()

Answer 2

As you want a C++ solution, you could use Qt. It has a QHttp class you can use.

You can check the docs:

http->setHost("qt.nokia.com");
http->get(QUrl::toPercentEncoding("/index.html"));

Qt also has a lot more to it that you could use in a common C++ app.

Answer 3

The HTTP protocol is very simple, so it is very simple to write a HTTP client. Here is one

https://github.com/pedro-vicente/lib_netsockets

It uses HTTP GET to retrieve a file from a web server, both server and file are command line parameters. The remote file is saved to a local copy.

Disclaimer: I am the author

check http.cc https://github.com/pedro-vicente/lib_netsockets/blob/master/src/http.cc

int http_client_t::get(const char *path_remote_file)
{
  char buf_request[1024];

  //construct request message using class input parameters
  sprintf(buf_request, "GET %s HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: %s\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n", path_remote_file, m_server_ip.c_str());

  //send request, using built in tcp_client_t socket
  if (this->write_all(buf_request, (int)strlen(buf_request)) < 0)
  {
    return -1;
  }

EDIT: edited URL

Answer 4

You may want to check C++ REST SDK (codename "Casablanca"). http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj950081.aspx

With the C++ REST SDK, you can more easily connect to HTTP servers from your C++ app.

Usage example:

#include <iostream>
#include <cpprest/http_client.h>

using namespace web::http;                  // Common HTTP functionality
using namespace web::http::client;          // HTTP client features

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    http_client client("http://httpbin.org/");

    http_response response;
    // ordinary `get` request
    response = client.request(methods::GET, "/get").get();
    std::cout << response.extract_string().get() << "\n";

    // working with json
    response = client.request(methods::GET, "/get").get();
    std::cout << "url: " << response.extract_json().get()[U("url")] << "\n";
}

The C++ REST SDK is a Microsoft project for cloud-based client-server communication in native code using a modern asynchronous C++ API design.

Answer 5

Generally I'd recommend something cross-platform like cURL, POCO, or Qt. However, here is a Windows example!:

#include <atlbase.h>
#include <msxml6.h>
#include <comutil.h> // _bstr_t

HRESULT hr;
CComPtr<IXMLHTTPRequest> request;

hr = request.CoCreateInstance(CLSID_XMLHTTP60);
hr = request->open(
    _bstr_t("GET"),
    _bstr_t("https://www.google.com/images/srpr/logo11w.png"),
    _variant_t(VARIANT_FALSE),
    _variant_t(),
    _variant_t());
hr = request->send(_variant_t());

// get status - 200 if succuss
long status;
hr = request->get_status(&status);

// load image data (if url points to an image)
VARIANT responseVariant;
hr = request->get_responseStream(&responseVariant);
IStream* stream = (IStream*)responseVariant.punkVal;
CImage *image = new CImage();
image->Load(stream);
stream->Release();

Answer 6

CppRest SDK by MS is what I just found and after about 1/2 hour had my first simple web service call working. Compared that to others mentioned here where I was not able to get anything even installed after hours of looking, I'd say it is pretty impressive

https://github.com/microsoft/cpprestsdk

Scroll down and click on Documentation, then click on Getting Started Tutorial and you will have a simple app running in no time.