winsock, wininet, libcurl

[chamburger]

Can anyone tell me which is better and the most well rounded to learn first for network programming in C++? Thanks.

[Computergeek01]

They are different tools. Winsock is a straight sockets library, Wininet is an internet library. Libcurl is sort of both and the kitchen sink. Libcurl is the only cross-platform lib out of those three.

[chamburger]

Thanks!! so it would be best to learn libcurl then? Is there a section on here that talks about libcurl? I;ve tried to use that lib before but after downloading the zip and linking to my compiler i'm lost.

[Computergeek01]

I haven't taken the opportunity to work with libcurl myself. Have you gotten as far as compiling it for your system?

[chamburger]

No thats I think where I get stuck. For libraries outside of standard libraries I have used SFML and it was a basic download a zip file and link to the various directories, but with libcurl and the wrapper curlpp, I dk what the heck I'm doing, I've read, to use CMAKE and makefiles but there aren't really any tutorials i have found.

Basically my question is how can I comile a library to be later linked in my C++ projects? Do i need to do it for every library? And where will be saving these makefiles?

THANKS!!!! Seriously if you or anyone else coudl give me a solild explanation of this it'd be extremely appreciated.

[Computergeek01]

I'm still fighting with the C++ wrapper but compiling Curl with CMAKE wasn't too painful. You have to know what you are compiling for. For me I just ran CMAKE, set the directory to where the "CMakeLists.txt" file is unpacked to, Selected the directory I wanted the files compiled into, then I selected my compiler (Mingw) and ran it.


CMAKE: http://www.cmake.org/

[chamburger]

What if the unpacked file has no cmakelists.txt in it? The zip that I downloaded already had the bin folder, include, lib etc...why do I need to use CMake at all? Thanks.

[kbw]

Can anyone tell me which is better and the most well rounded to learn first for network programming in C++?

If you want to learn network programming, I'd recommend sockets. WinSock has some extra stuff that's Windows specific (and thus irrelevant), but it does support the BSD style sockets library.

CURL is helpful if you just want to use something to interact with the Web, but it doesn't help you to learn networking. That's kind of the point, it allows you to use the Web without really understanding network programming.

[chamburger]

If you want to learn network programming, I'd recommend sockets. WinSock has some extra stuff that's Windows specific (and thus irrelevant), but it does support the BSD style sockets library.

What library do you recommend that is xplatform?

Curl seems like it might be a good beginning or at the least something to build upon, if I could only get the library to work with C++. I'd like to know as much about outside libraries as possible to be honest.

Thanks.