How can I fetch data from a website inside a C++ program

Question

I want to write a program in C++ that helps to manage my hockey pool, and one of the key things i will need to do is read off the schedule for the week ahead. I was hoping to use the NHL website. is there any way to have the program download the HTML file for a given url, and then parse that? i suppose that once i have the file downloaded, Simple file I/O would do, but im not sure how to download the file.

Possible duplicate of [Programmatically reading a web page](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/389069/programmatically-reading-a-web-page) — 463035818_is_not_an_ai, Jul 20 '17 at 20:12

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 20 '17 at 20:15

I would use some library providing Http abstraction.

For example:

cpp-netlib

#include <boost/network/protocol/http/client.hpp>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    boost::network::http::client client;
    boost::network::http::client::request request("http://www.example.com");
    request << boost::network::header("Connection", "close");
    boost::network::http::client::response response = client.get(request);

    std::cout << body(response);
}

I do not think it can get much easier than that

On GNU/Linux compile with:

g++ -I. -I$BOOST_ROOT -L$BOOST_ROOT/stage/lib -lboost_system -pthread my_main.cpp

QHttp

Example for this could get quite long, since QHttp can send only non-blocking requests (that means, that you have to catch some signals reporting that the request was finished, etc.). But the documentation is superb, so it should not be a problem. :)

+1 Although this library is not yet accepted, it seems elegant. — Khaled Alshaya, Dec 20 '10 at 09:19
@Palmik is there an updated version of this, I'm getting compiler errors. — BioFluorescent277, Nov 14 '21 at 16:37

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 20 '10 at 09:00

6

Using libcurl is one option. Here is an example of using it with C++ to download contents of a webpage as a string.

answered Dec 20 '10 at 09:00

darioo

46,442
10
75
103

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 21 '13 at 20:45

0

I finally managed to compile it and link with:

    g++ -I. -I/usr/include -lboost_thread -lboost_system 
    -lcppnetlib-client-connections -lcppnetlib-server-parsers 
    -lcppnetlib-uri -pthread main.cpp

answered Dec 21 '13 at 20:45

user1638291

49
2
8

How can I fetch data from a website inside a C++ program

3 Answers3

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