SimpleWebClient v1.5

Author: Emmanuel KARTMANN.

Creation Date: February 7th, 2000

Last Update: February 17th, 2000

This ATL COM component provides very simple Internet Web functionality (HTTP).

This component has been designed to provide high-performance and low resource usage. It's perfectly suited for testing a Web Application (integrated within a VB client which implements a testing scenario, for example).

• use the WIN32 WinInet API (low-level API for HTTP).
• provide one single method: Download (send an HTTP GET request and retrieve the document)
• provide a timeout feature
• provide extended error information (ISupportErrorInfo and IErrorInfo are implemented)
• support text data (using BSTR) and binary data (using SAFEARRAY of BYTEs)
• provide very small executable: 32 Ko (Release MinSize)
• require no Graphical User Interface: the component can be used in non-GUI applications, like a Windows NT Service or ASP pages.
• run on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95 (not tested) and Windows 98 (not tested)
• compile with VC++ 6.0 SP3
• doesn't use MFC (use ATL only)

To use this component:

• create an instance of the component,
• optionally, set the timeout property (in milliseconds)
• call method DownloadPage from interface ISimpleHTTPClient
• handle errors (try/catch in C++, On Error Resume in VBScript)

    Dim oHTTP

    Set oHTTP = CreateObject("Emmanuel.SimpleHTTPClient.1")

    Dim page_url
    page_url = document.forms("REQUEST_FORM").item("PAGE_URL").value
    Dim page_content
    Dim page_type

    ' Download a text page
    oHTTP.DownloadPage page_url, page_content, page_type, 0

    ' Show page type (HTTP "Content-Type")
    MsgBox "Page Type: " & page_type

    ' Show page content in a dialog box
    MsgBox page_content

Please refer to the test HTML files for a full VBSsript example :

TestSimpleWebClient.htm (client-Side scripting)
TestSimpleWebClientFromServer.htm and TestSimpleWebClient.asp (server-side scripting)

Here's the low-level (API) documentation for the component:

• Simple Web Client Library
• CSimpleHTTPClient class
• DownloadPage method

Download

Download Article and Source Code (74 KB).

Download self-extracting kit (58 KB).