Reading text from a website in C++

Question

I am currently coding a chat application-like-thing, and it writes and reads from a .txt file on DropBox in my 'public' folder. I was wondering how exactly I could achieve this.

My code so far is:

#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <Windows.h>
#include <cstdlib>
using namespace std;

int main () {
    string output;
    string outputty;
    string Chat;
    string option;

    string line;
    ofstream players;
    ifstream chat;
    fstream chatw;

    cout << "(1) - Enter\n";
    cin >> option;
    if (option == "1") {
        players.open ("C:/Users/Pebsie/Dropbox/Public/data.txt");
        string name;
        cout << "\nWhat is your name?\n";
        cin >> name; 
        players << name;
        players.close();
        cout << "Entering..";
        chatw.open ("C:/Users/Pebsie/Dropbox/Public/chat.txt", fstream::out | fstream::app | fstream::ate);
        chatw << "***" << name << " Entered the game*** " << endl;
        chatw.close();
        while (1) {
            system("cls");
            ifstream myfile ("C:/Users/Pebsie/Dropbox/Public/chat.txt");
            if (myfile.is_open()) {
                while ( myfile.good() )
                {
                    getline (myfile,line);
                    cout << line << endl;
                }
                myfile.close();
            }

            cin >> option;
            if (option == "/refresh") {
                 //DO NOTHING
            }
            else if (option == "/clearchat") {
                chatw.open ("C:/Users/Pebsie/Dropbox/Public/chat.txt", fstream::out);
                chatw << name << " cleared the chat." << endl;
                chatw.close();
            }
            else {
                chatw.open ("C:/Users/Pebsie/Dropbox/Public/chat.txt", fstream::out | fstream::app | fstream::ate);
                chatw << name << ": " << option << endl;
                chatw.close();
            }
        }
        system("pause"); 
        chatw.open ("C:/Users/Pebsie/Dropbox/Public/chat.txt", fstream::out | fstream::app | fstream::ate);
        chatw << "***" << name << " Left the game..*** " << endl;
        chatw.close();
        return 0;
    } 
}

When I code it, I test it locally, but still write to it so that the users can see what I'm updating to it.

So, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

EDIT- My question, is how I would actually be able to write to and read from the dropbox file. It's public URL is http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17570838/chat.txt / how I could load the file from the online URL.

P.S It's just going to be used as a chat app for a test, it obviously isn't very good as it doesn't auto update.

So you're building it to let Dropbox do all the synchronization of the files and letting dropbox's infrastructure do your network traversal? That's an interesting approach. I can assure you that it is almost gauranteed to fail as a chat mechanism, but it's an interesting approach. Consider also asking for design help on Programmers.SE? — jcolebrand, Apr 26 '11 at 21:00
What is the question? it is difficult to tell what is being asked here. Do you want help writing your program, or is there a bug that needs fixed? please clarify. — Nate Koppenhaver, Apr 26 '11 at 21:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

1

Check out the libcurl library. It supports many file transfer protocols, including HTTP. There is also curlpp which is a C++ wrapper around libcurl.

See this related question for an example.

Reading the file via HTTP should be fairly straightforward. Alas, I don't know what mechanism Dropbox uses to upload files (WebDAV?).

edited May 23 '17 at 11:47

Community

1
1

answered Apr 26 '11 at 21:27

Emile Cormier

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Reading text from a website in C++

1 Answers1