Web requests with HTTP

Introduction
SFML provides a simple HTTP client class which you can use to communicate
with HTTP servers. "Simple" means that it supports the most basic features of
HTTP: POST, GET and HEAD request types, accessing HTTP header fields,
and reading/writing the pages body.

If you need more advanced features, such as secured HTTP (HTTPS) for
example, you're better off using a true HTTP library, like libcurl or cpp-netlib.

For basic interaction between your program and an HTTP server, it should be
enough.

sf::Http
To communicate with an HTTP server you must use the sf::Http class.

#include <SFML/Network.hpp>

sf::Http http;

http.setHost( "http://www.some-server.org/");

// or

sf::Http http( "http://www.some-server.org/");

Note that setting the host doesn't trigger any connection. A temporary
connection is created for each request.

The only other function in sf::Http, sends requests. This is basically all that
the class does.

sf::Http::Request request;

// fill the request...

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 sf::Http::Response response = http.sendRequest(request);

Requests
An HTTP request, represented by the sf::Http::Request class, contains the
following information:

o The method: POST (send content), GET (retrieve a resource), HEAD

(retrieve a resource header, without its body)
o The URI: the address of the resource (page, image, ...) to get/post,
relative to the root directory
o The HTTP version (it is 1.0 by default but you can choose a different
version if you use specific features)
o The header: a set of fields with key and value
o The body of the page (used only with the POST method)
sf::Http::Request request;

request.setMethod(sf::Http::Request::Post);

request.setUri( "/page.html");

request.setHttpVersion( 1, 1); // HTTP 1.1

request.setField( "From", "me");

request.setField( "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");

request.setBody( "para1=value1&param2=value2");

sf::Http::Response response = http.sendRequest(request);

SFML automatically fills mandatory header fields, such as "Host", "Content-

Length", etc. You can send your requests without worrying about them. SFML
will do its best to make sure they are valid.

Responses
If the sf::Http class could successfully connect to the host and send the
request, a response is sent back and returned to the user, encapsulated in an

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instance of the sf::Http::Response class. Responses contain the following
members:

o A status code which precisely indicates how the server processed the
request (OK, redirected, not found, etc.)
o The HTTP version of the server
o The header: a set of fields with key and value
o The body of the response
sf::Http::Response response = http.sendRequest(request);

std ::cout << "status: " << response.getStatus() << std::endl;

std ::cout << "HTTP version: " << response.getMajorHttpVersion() << "." <<

response.getMinorHttpVersion() << std::endl;

std ::cout << "Content-Type header:" << response.getField("Content-Type") <<

std::endl;

std ::cout << "body: " << response.getBody() << std::endl;

The status code can be used to check whether the request was successfully
processed or not: codes 2xx represent success, codes 3xx represent a
redirection, codes 4xx represent client errors, codes 5xx represent server
errors, and codes 10xx represent SFML specific errors which are not part of
the HTTP standard.

Example: sending scores to an online server

Here is a short example that demonstrates how to perform a simple task:
Sending a score to an online database.

#include <SFML/Network.hpp>

#include <sstream>

void sendScore(int score, const std::string& name)

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 // prepare the request

sf::Http::Request request( "/send-score.php", sf::Http::Request::Post);

// encode the parameters in the request body

std::ostringstream stream;

stream << "name=" << name << "&score=" << score;

request.setBody(stream.str());

// send the request

sf::Http http( "http://www.myserver.com/");

sf::Http::Response response = http.sendRequest(request);

// check the status

if (response.getStatus() == sf::Http::Response::Ok)

// check the contents of the response

std::cout << response.getBody() << std::endl;

else

std::cout << "request failed" << std::endl;

Of course, this is a very simple way to handle online scores. There's no

protection: Anybody could easily send a false score. A more robust approach
would probably involve an extra parameter, like a hash code that ensures that
the request was sent by the program. That is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

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And finally, here is a very simple example of what the PHP page on server
might look like.

<?php

$name = $_POST['name'];

$score = $_POST['score'];

if (write_to_database($name, $score)) // this is not a PHP tutorial :)

echo "name and score added!";

else

echo "failed to write name and score to database...";

?>