Web access authentication in C++ ?

Question

I'm trying to write a simple GUI application using Qt framework.

The purpose of this app is to retrieve data from my isp and parse them for presentation.

How do i authenticate my user/password with the webserver and retrieve the html page in question?

Are there any utility libs that make this task trivial?

I figure i need to interact with the server php script and simulate a form input somehow.

Am i on the right track?

Answer 1

You're on the right track, I suggest taking a look at curl. That should make it alot easier.

• edit: Hm, thought it did more than just file-transfer. Otherwise here's a load more of interesting lib's

Answer 2

The way to authenticate depends completely on the authentication method used by the server. If it's some form to log in you need to retrieve that and send the correct data to the forms action target (usually as POST request). You could do this by constructing your request using QHttpRequestHeader and then simply sending it to the server. If you even know about the form you might even not need to retrieve the login page. If the website uses HTTP authentication you should be able using QAuthenticator.