Retrieving HTTPS Data

by Brent Thorn - BrentDT
Originally in Liberty BASIC Newsletter #37

This demo reads a remote file into memory. Hopefully Yahoo doesn't mind my choice of URLs. Please note the strange hanging behavior at the "Close #inet" statement.

After doing a little testing, I found my hanging was the result of some ad-blocking software I have installed. When I disabled it the hanging ceased. It may be rare but you may want to keep this possibility in mind when using my code in your own programs. I can only suggest not closing #inet until after all your windows are closed at exit to avoid any possibility of a user's thinking your app is faulty.

Demo

'CODE BEGINS
    'Retrieving HTTPS Data Demo
    'By Brent D. Thorn, 9/2005
 
    remoteFile$ = "https://login.yahoo.com/"
 
    CHUNK.SIZE = 512 ' enough bytes to hold a single line of HTML
 
    Open "wininet" For DLL As #inet
 
    'It would be a good idea to test for an Internet
    'connection before proceding. This demo assumes
    'you have one already.
 
    ' Register a new user agent. Use proxy settings
    ' set up in Internet Options Control Panel.
    CallDLL #inet, "InternetOpenA", _
        "My User Agent" As Ptr, _
        0 As Long, _ 'INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG
        _NULL As Long, _
        _NULL As Long, _
        0 As ULong, _
        hInet As ULong
    If hInet = 0 Then [ErrExit]
 
    ' Open a request to a remote file
    CallDLL #inet, "InternetOpenUrlA", _
        hInet As ULong, _
        remoteFile$ As Ptr, _
        _NULL As Long, _
        0 As Long, _
        2147483648 As ULong, _ 'INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD
        _NULL As Long, _
        hFile As ULong
    If hFile = 0 Then [ErrExit]
 
    ' Start reading in the file by chunks.
    Buffer$ = ""
    chunk$ = Space$(CHUNK.SIZE)+Chr$(0)
    Struct pdw, NumberOfBytesRead As ULong
    Do
        CallDLL #inet, "InternetReadFile", _
            hFile As ULong, _
            chunk$ As Ptr, _
            CHUNK.SIZE As ULong, _
            pdw As Struct, _
            ret As Long
 
        If pdw.NumberOfBytesRead.struct = 0 Then Exit Do
 
        Buffer$ = Buffer$ + Left$(chunk$, pdw.NumberOfBytesRead.struct)
    Loop Until 0
 
    Print Buffer$
 
[ErrExit]
    ' If you get an error, find GetLastError on MSDN. There
    ' you will find a link to a list of error codes.
    CallDLL #kernel32, "GetLastError", ret As ULong
    If ret Then Print "Error ";ret
 
    ' Free the handles we created and exit.
 
    If hFile Then _
    CallDLL #inet, "InternetCloseHandle", _
        hFile As ULong, ret As Long
 
    If hInet Then _
    CallDLL #inet, "InternetCloseHandle", _
        hInet As ULong, ret As Long
 
    ' Strangely, the next line causes LB to hang for around 45
    ' seconds on my computer, a 2.2 GHz running XP on dial-up.
    Close #inet
 
    End
'CODE ENDS