webclient - How to access a web site from a native Windows application?

Question

I hope this is a simple question.

Using .NET, I could simply access a Web site using:

WebClient wc = new WebClient();
wc.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("myUserName", "Password123");
string fileContent = wc.DownloadString("https://example.com/example.txt");

Unfortunately, I am working on a native 64-bit DLL file which is used as plug-in in another program.

So I have no chance to use .NET but I can only use native 64-bit Windows DLLs.

Are there any native Windows APIs that do the same as the code above?

I have searched the Internet, but I found nothing.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65832658/how-to-access-a-web-site-from-a-native-windows-application

Answer 1

I found out the answer myself:

The functions of "wininet.dll" are the solution:

The function InternetOpen() more or less corresponds to new WebClient().

Downloading data is a bit more complicated; there is no unified API for different protocols (HTTP, FTP, ...), but each protocol type uses different functions.

To download (GET) or send (POST) data via HTTP or HTTPS, the APIs InternetCrackUrl(), InternetConnect(), HttpSendRequest() and InternetReadFile() are used.

(Note: On the Microsoft web site documentation, the function declarations are shown as void InternetOpen(...) although the documentation says that the functions return a value of the type HINTERNET. HINTERNET is correct, void is wrong.)