1 Overview 2 HTTPS (TLS/SSL) 3 Examples 3.1 Get body of a web page via HTTP protocol 3.2 Download a file via HTTP protocol 3.3 Upload a file using POST 3.4 Form data and encoding 3.5 Get external IP address 3.6 Translate text using Google Translate 4 External links
Overview
fphttpclient is supplied with FPC as part of the fcl-web package, and can be used by itself as well. HTTPS (TLS/SSL)
Since April 2014, the trunk/development fphttpclient supports SSL/TLS connections using the OpenSSL library (will ship with version 2.8.0 and above). This requires the OpenSSL .so/.dll/.dylib library/libraries to be installed (e.g. present in your application or system directory on Windows).
If you do not use client side certificates, just specifying the proper port (e.g. 443 for https) is enough to enable TLS/SSL as long as you have OpenSSL libraries installed (or e.g. in the application directory) If you want to use e.g. a client side certificate, do something like this:
uses ...ssockets, sslsockets.. // Callback for setting up SSL client certificate procedure TSSLHelper.SSLClientCertSetup(Sender: TObject; const UseSSL: Boolean; out AHandler: TSocketHandler); begin AHandler := nil; if UseSSL and (FClientCertificate <> '') then begin // Only set up client certificate if needed. // If not, let normal fphttpclient flow create // required socket handler AHandler := TSSLSocketHandler.Create; // Example: use your own client certificate when communicating with the server: (AHandler as TSSLSocketHandler).Certificate.FileName := FClientCertificate; end; end;
//... and in your TFPHTTPClient creation: myclient := TFPHTTPClient.Create(nil); if FClientCertificate <> '' then myclient.OnGetSocketHandler := @SSLClientCertSetup;
Examples
Examples are included in your FPC directory: packages/fcl-web/examples/
Apart from those, please see below: Get body of a web page via HTTP protocol
uses fphttpclient;
Var S : String;
begin With TFPHttpClient.Create(Nil) do try S := Get(ParamStr(1)); finally Free; end; Writeln('Got : ',S); end.
If you want to write even fewer lines of code, in FPC 2.7.1 you can use the class method:
s := TFPCustomHTTPClient.SimpleGet('http://a_site/a_page');
Download a file via HTTP protocol
Let's show you the simplest example using HTTP only. This example retrieves just an html page and writes it to the screen.
It uses one of the class Get methods of TfpHttpClient. You don't need to create and free the class. There are several overloads for e.g. TStrings or TStream (file) as well:
program dl_fphttp_a; {$mode delphi}{$ifdef windows}{$apptype console}{$endif} uses fphttpclient; begin writeln(TFPHttpClient.SimpleGet('http://example.com')); end.
That's all! For simple purposes this will suffice. You can even use it for HTTPS, which needs just the inclusion of two units:
begin writeln(TFPHttpClient.SimpleGet('https://freepascal.org')); end.
This really is all there is to do in simple scenarios, usually if you have enough control.
But there are some caveats with this code. The foremost one being that this code does not allow for redirects. Let me demo that:
program dl_fphttp_redirect_error; {$mode delphi}{$ifdef windows}{$apptype console}{$endif} uses sysutils, fphttpclient, fpopenssl, openssl; begin try writeln(TFPHttpClient.SimpleGet('https://google.com')); except on E:EHttpClient do writeln(e.message) else raise; end; end.
Because the Google URL uses redirects, there is an exception: "Unexpected response status code: 301". In such a case we need more control, which I will show you in the next example:
You see this requires slightly more code, but it is still a very small program. Well, now we go to the last example, which downloads any file and saves it to disk. You can use it as a template for your own code, it demonstrates almost everything you need.
{ Test our file } if FileExists(Filename) then try SL := TStringList.Create; SL.LoadFromFile(Filename); writeln(SL.Text); finally SL.Free; end; end.
Upload a file using POST
Use TFPHTTPClient.FileFormPost()
uses fphttpclient;
Var Respo: TStringStream; S : String;
begin With TFPHttpClient.Create(Nil) do try Respo := TStringStream.Create(''); FileFormPost('http://example.com/upload.php','PostFilenameParam (ex. 'file')',edtSourceFile.Text,Respo); S := Respo.DataString; Respo.Destroy; finally Free; end; end.
If you pass FormData as TStrings the FormPost procedure performs EncodeURLElement but if you pass FormData as simple string to FormPost, then EncodeURLElement is not performed.
There is no difference in the behaviour if the data in FormData does not need to be encoded, but there is different behaviour for strings which include characters which are not allowed (eg '@', '=', etc). Get external IP address
If your computer is connected to the internet via a LAN (cabled or wireless), the IP address of your network card most probably is not your external IP address.
You can retrieve your external IP address from e.g. your router or an external site. The code below tries to get it from an external site (thanks to JoStudio on the forum for the inspiration: [1]):
{$mode objfpc}{$H+}
uses Classes, SysUtils, fphttpclient, RegexPr;
function GetExternalIPAddress: string; var HTTPClient: TFPHTTPClient; IPRegex: TRegExpr; RawData: string; begin try HTTPClient := TFPHTTPClient.Create(nil); IPRegex := TRegExpr.Create; try //returns something like: { Current IP CheckCurrent IP Address: 44.151.191.44 } RawData:=HTTPClient.Get('http://checkip.dyndns.org'); // adjust for expected output; we just capture the first IP address now: IPRegex.Expression := RegExprString('\b\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\b'); //or //\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b if IPRegex.Exec(RawData) then begin result := IPRegex.Match[0]; end else begin result := 'Got invalid results getting external IP address. Details:'+LineEnding+ RawData; end; except on E: Exception do begin result := 'Error retrieving external IP address: '+E.Message; end; end; finally HTTPClient.Free; IPRegex.Free; end; end;
begin writeln('External IP address:'); writeln(GetExternalIPAddress); end.
