ifstream help needed...

[eyesrglazed]

I am trying to input from a file on the Internet, although I'm not sure if this is possible. Any ideas?

 

[chipperMDW]

Not with just an [tt]ifstream[/tt], it isn't.

A file "on the Internet" can mean lots of things. If you mean "on the Web," then you'll need to use a library that knows HTTP (the protocol used to retrieve objects from the Web). You may have such a library already on your system, or you may need to grab one like libcurl, which can incidentally be used to retrieve files using other Internet protocols as well.

 

[eyesrglazed]

Okay. So what would I include for that if my code was something simple like this :

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int main
{
    ifstream inFile;
    string   webSite;
    string   str;

    cin >> webSite;
    inFile.open(webSite.c_str());
    inFile >> str;
    cout << str;

    return 0;
}

I would like to know what else I need for this to be able to use an actual website where the variable webSite is.

What would the resulting code look like?

 

[ArkM]

See WinInet API (InternetOpenUrl, HttpOpenRequest, FtpOpenFile, InternetReadFile etc)...

 

[eyesrglazed]

Got it. Thanks.