Unix Programming - C++ CGI Accessing Webpage

Author

C++ CGI Accessing Webpage

joseph cook

2007-08-18, 7:20 pm

In PHP, I can access a webpage data simply by $fp = fopen("http://
www.url.com");

How can I do the equivalant using a C++ CGI on UNIX? All my searched
just pile lots of windows crap on me (yuck!)

Can anyone point me to any resources ?

I guess ifstream("http://www.url.com") is asking too much ?

thanks,
Joe C

Robert Harris

2007-08-18, 7:20 pm

joseph cook wrote:
> In PHP, I can access a webpage data simply by $fp = fopen("http://
> www.url.com");
>
> How can I do the equivalant using a C++ CGI on UNIX? All my searched
> just pile lots of windows crap on me (yuck!)
>
> Can anyone point me to any resources ?

The CGI spec is at <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3875.txt>

>
> I guess ifstream("http://www.url.com") is asking too much ?

Yes. Fetching web pages from C++ is not completely straightforward!

Robert

>
> thanks,
> Joe C
>

joseph cook

2007-08-18, 7:20 pm

>
> Yes. Fetching web pages from C++ is not completely straightforward!
>
> Robert

Thanks for that. It's way over my head though! I got it working by
calling system(wget url -O output), and then ifstream("output");

it seems to be plenty fast enough for my needs. After doing so much
php for web apps, I am already seeing things come back and calculate
an order of magnitude faster, if not more. Of course, this could be
due to the fact that I have 11 years C++ under my belt, and only done
casual php coding.

Thanks

Ian Collins

2007-08-18, 7:20 pm

joseph cook wrote:
>
> Thanks for that. It's way over my head though! I got it working by
> calling system(wget url -O output), and then ifstream("output");
>
How about using

popen( "wget url -O -", "r" );

--
Ian Collins.

SM Ryan

2007-08-18, 7:20 pm

joseph cook <joecook@gmail.com> wrote:
# In PHP, I can access a webpage data simply by $fp = fopen("http://
# www.url.com");
#
# How can I do the equivalant using a C++ CGI on UNIX? All my searched
# just pile lots of windows crap on me (yuck!)

Are you taking about as a client or a server? A client does not
know how an http request is fulfilled. (The URL hints, but the
server is not constrained by those hints.)

--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
I think that's kinda of personal; I don't think I should answer that.

John Tsiombikas

2007-08-19, 1:19 am

On 2007-08-18, joseph cook <joecook@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I guess ifstream("http://www.url.com") is asking too much ?

Hehe, yeah, ifstream only works with files

You could just open a socket, connect to the http server and feed it a
custom-made HTTP request (just to get a grasp of the process), just
google for HTTP RFC (can't be bothered to look up the number right now).

However, in a real program, I would suggest using libcurl. It's a free
cross platform library for handling a number of network protocols (HTTP
among them), and it's extremely easy to use. Check it out.

--
John Tsiombikas (Nuclear / Mindlapse)
nuclear@siggraph.org
http://nuclear.demoscene.gr/

Russell Wood

2007-08-19, 1:19 am

On 2007-08-18, joseph cook <joecook@gmail.com> wrote:
> In PHP, I can access a webpage data simply by $fp = fopen("http://
> www.url.com");
>
> How can I do the equivalant using a C++ CGI on UNIX? All my searched
> just pile lots of windows crap on me (yuck!)
>
> Can anyone point me to any resources ?
>
> I guess ifstream("http://www.url.com") is asking too much ?

Man socket

--
Russell Wood
<http://www.dynode.net/~rjw/>

Logan Shaw

2007-08-19, 7:17 am

joseph cook wrote:
> In PHP, I can access a webpage data simply by $fp = fopen("http://
> www.url.com");
>
> How can I do the equivalant using a C++ CGI on UNIX? All my searched
> just pile lots of windows crap on me (yuck!)
>
> Can anyone point me to any resources ?

I would use libcurl.

Or even better, I would simply avoid fetching stuff from URLs when
serving a web page.

- Logan