Read HTTP Headers from C program

[shaikh_mshariq]

I need to write a small application which can be used to store html from any web server. I have written some code that is able to fetch HTML page along with header. I need to know is there any way to distinguish these headers from actual html content. Can I have the way to use this header to know file name and its size etc. which is already there in Headers.

Thanks In Advance :) .

[Salem]

You mean the same way that browsers understand the difference between the header and content?

http://www.rfc-editor.org/
Find the RFCs for HTTP and read.

[shaikh_mshariq]

Yes same as browser does. I am using the same request-response method. Using socket I am writing GET request on the on port 80 and waiting for the reply. I am able to get HTTP Header and Response from the socket.

Sample GET request would be

GET /Scripts.htm HTTP 1.1\r\n\n

Is this is the expected method to get the content ?

Thanks Again

[Salem]

Like I said, read the RFCs and be informed.

[shaikh_mshariq]

Thanks for reply. It means I need to write routine which handle HTTP transfers from scratch. Does any body has work on this ? Can I have a header file or library to handle this HTTP transfers. Thanks Again for your reply :) .

[ArkM]

I need to write a small application which can be used to store html from any web server. I have written some code that is able to fetch HTML page along with header. I need to know is there any way to distinguish these headers from actual html content. Can I have the way to use this header to know file name and its size etc. which is already there in Headers.

Of course, anybody had worked on this: anybody wrote your browser, anybody wrote DaniWeb web-server engine. All these beasts generate and parse http headers ;)

HTTP message header lines are simple text lines: what's additional header do you want to process text lines? An empty line (CRLF) terminates header fields.
See:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec4.html#sec4
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html
Also you may download dlib C++ library:
http://dclib.sourceforge.net/
There is an example in the dlib distribution: a simple http-server. Read the code, run this example: it shows all http message header lines from your request.

The most interesting counter-question: are you sure that you say about HTTP message header? Or it's HTML header? Feel the difference (by the way, no HTTP word in your help request message body) ;)...

[Salem]

http://curl.haxx.se/ is another library for doing all the donkey work.