Thread: Download file from my webserver?

I cant seem to get it to write out the correct size to the .gif file,the original is 3kb but the new one i write to finishs with 1kb, can anyone help

Code:

cout << "Connected"<< endl;

		 std::string sendbuffer = "GET /apache_pb.gif HTTP/1.1\r\n" 
                              "Host: 192.168.1.4\r\n\r\n";

		// std::string buffer2 = "GET /apache_pb.gif HTTP/1.1\r\n Host: 192.168.1.4\r\n\r\n";

		cout << sendbuffer.c_str() << endl;

		nret = send(theSocket, sendbuffer.c_str(), sendbuffer.size(), 0);

		std::string rbuffer;
		rbuffer.resize(1024,0);
		size_t sfind;
		std::fstream fs;
		fs.open ("apache_pb.gif", std::ifstream::binary,std::fstream::out);
		 

		nret = recv(theSocket, &rbuffer[0],1024,0);
		if(nret > 0)
		{
			sfind = rbuffer.find("\r\n\r\n");
			if(sfind != string::npos)
			{
				cout << nret << endl;
				cout << "found" << endl;
				fs.write (rbuffer.c_str()+sfind+4,((nret)-(sfind+4)));
			}
		}

		while(1)
		{
			
			nret = recv(theSocket, &rbuffer[0],1024,0);
		    if(nret > 0)
			{
				cout << nret << endl;
				fs.write (rbuffer.c_str(),nret);
			}
			else
			{
				break;
			}
		}

		

		fs.close();
	}

	system("pause");

try to use std::vector<char> for buffer instead of string, I'm not sure c_str() works good with binary data

You should also consider the possibility that the server will return 1024 characters of header data, with out a "\r\n\r\n" sequence. in which case, you need to read again, and append to the first 1024 bytes, then look for your "\r\n\r\n" again, and repeat until you find it. You should also look for the "Content-length" header, so you know how many bytes to expect. Checking the HTTP return code (200, 404, etc.) would also be a good idea.

I would use curl library in this case - which will handle all the parsing for me

libcurl - getinmemory.c

Writing a basic HTTP client is not too difficult, but you have to do more than just read from a socket. It's a good exercise for an intermediate programmer. cURL is great, but if you don't want the overhead, writing your own is good too.