HttpOpenRequest

Important:
This is retired content. This content is outdated and is no longer being maintained. It is provided as a courtesy for individuals who are still using these technologies. This content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.

This function opens an HTTP request handle.

HINTERNET WINAPI HttpOpenRequest(
HINTERNET
hConnect
,
LPCTSTR
lpszVerb
,  
LPCTSTR
lpszObjectName
,
LPCTSTR
lpszVersion
,
LPCTSTR
lpszReferrer
,
LPCTSTR *
lplpszAcceptTypes
,
DWORD
dwFlags
,
DWORD
dwContext
);

Parameters

hConnect

[in] Handle to an HTTP session returned by InternetConnect.

lpszVerb

[in] Long pointer to a null-terminated string that contains the verb to use in the request. If this parameter is NULL, the function uses "GET" as the verb.

lpszObjectName

[in] Long pointer to a null-terminated string that contains the name of the target object of the specified verb. This is generally a file name, an executable module, or a search specifier.

lpszVersion

[in] Long pointer to a null-terminated string that contains the HTTP version. If this parameter is NULL, the function uses "HTTP/1.0" as the version.

lpszReferrer

[in] Long pointer to a null-terminated string that specifies the address (URL) of the document from which the URL in the request ( lpszObjectName) was obtained. If this parameter is NULL, no "referrer" is specified.

lplpszAcceptTypes

[in] Long pointer to a null-terminated array of string pointers indicating content types accepted by the client. If this parameter is NULL, no types are accepted by the client. Servers interpret a lack of accept types to indicate that the client accepts only documents of type "text/*" (that is, only text documents, and not pictures or other binary files).

dwFlags

[in] Specifies a bitmask of Internet flags. Can be any of the following values:

Value	Description
INTERNET_FLAG_CACHE_IF_NET_FAIL	Return the resource from the cache if the network request for the resource fails due to an ERROR_INTERNET_CONNECTION_RESET or ERROR_INTERNET_CANNOT_CONNECT.
INTERNET_FLAG_DONT_CACHE	Not supported. Data is never cached.
INTERNET_FLAG_HYPERLINK	Forces a reload if there was no Expires time and no Last-Modified time returned from the server when determining whether to reload the item from the network.
INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_CERT_CN_INVALID	Disables Win32 Internet function checking of SSL/PCT-based certificates that are returned from the server against the host name given in the request. Win32 Internet functions use a simple check against certificates by comparing for matching host names and simple wildcarding rules.
INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_CERT_DATE_INVALID	Disables Win32 Internet function checking of SSL/PCT-based certificates for proper validity dates.
INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_REDIRECT_TO_HTTP	Disables the ability of the Win32 Internet functions to detect this special type of redirect. When this flag is used, Win32 Internet functions transparently allow redirects from HTTPS to HTTP URLs.
INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_REDIRECT_TO_HTTPS	Disables the ability of the Win32 Internet functions to detect this special type of redirect. When this flag is used, Win32 Internet functions transparently allow redirects from HTTP to HTTPS URLs.
INTERNET_FLAG_KEEP_CONNECTION	Uses keep-alive semantics, if available, for the connection. This flag is required for Microsoft Network (MSN), NT LAN Manager (NTLM), and other types of authentication.
INTERNET_FLAG_MAKE_PERSISTENT	Not supported.
INTERNET_FLAG_MUST_CACHE_REQUEST	Causes a temporary file to be created if the file cannot be cached. Identical to the preferred value INTERNET_FLAG_NEED_FILE.
INTERNET_FLAG_NEED_FILE	Causes a temporary file to be created if the file cannot be cached.
INTERNET_FLAG_NO_AUTH	Does not attempt authentication automatically.
INTERNET_FLAG_NO_AUTO_REDIRECT	Does not automatically handle redirection in HttpSendRequest.
INTERNET_FLAG_NO_CACHE_WRITE	Does not add the returned entity to the cache.
INTERNET_FLAG_NO_COOKIES	Does not automatically add cookie headers to requests, and does not automatically add returned cookies to the cookie database.
INTERNET_FLAG_NO_UI	Disables the cookie dialog box.
INTERNET_FLAG_PRAGMA_NOCACHE	Forces the request to be resolved by the origin server, even if a cached copy exists on the proxy.
INTERNET_FLAG_READ_PREFETCH	This flag is currently disabled.
INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD	Not supported. Data is always from the wire and caching is not supported.
INTERNET_FLAG_RESYNCHRONIZE	Reloads HTTP resources if the resource has been modified since the last time it was downloaded.
INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE	Uses SSL/PCT transaction semantics.

dwContext

[in] Specifies the application-defined value that associates this operation with any application data.

Return Values

A valid, non-NULL HTTP request handle indicates success. NULL indicates failure. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

HttpOpenRequestcreates a new HTTP request handle and stores the specified parameters in that handle. An HTTP request handle holds a request to be sent to an HTTP server and contains all RFC822/MIME/HTTP headers to be sent as part of the request.

Use the InternetCloseHandlefunction to close the handle returned by HttpOpenRequest. InternetCloseHandlecancels all outstanding I/O on the handle.

The lpszReferrerparameter to InternetOpenis used as the referrer for the HTTP request.

The dwContextparameter allows for progress status callbacks to the application, but all requests will be handled synchronously.

When establishing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Private Communications Technology, HttpOpenRequestuses the INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE option in addition to all other options.

The following dwFlagsvalues can be used in HttpOpenRequestto ignore invalid certificate errors:

INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_CERT_CN_INVALID

Ignores errors caused when the certificate host name of the server does not match the host name in the request.

INTERNET_FLAG_IGNORE_CERT_DATE_INVALID

Ignores errors caused by an expired server certificate.

Requirements

Runs on	Versions	Defined in	Include	Link to
Windows CE OS	2.0 and later	Wininet.h		Wininet.lib

Note This API is part of the complete Windows CE OS package as provided by Microsoft. The functionality of a particular platform is determined by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and some devices may not support this API.