HttpSendRequest function

Sends the specified request to the HTTP server, allowing callers to send extra data beyond what is normally passed to HttpSendRequestEx.

Syntax

C++


BOOL HttpSendRequest(
  _In_ HINTERNET hRequest,
  _In_ LPCTSTR   lpszHeaders,
  _In_ DWORD     dwHeadersLength,
  _In_ LPVOID    lpOptional,
  _In_ DWORD     dwOptionalLength
);

Parameters

hRequest [in]: A handle returned by a call to the HttpOpenRequest function.
lpszHeaders [in]: A pointer to a null-terminated string that contains the additional headers to be appended to the request. This parameter can be NULL if there are no additional headers to be appended.
dwHeadersLength [in]: The size of the additional headers, in TCHARs. If this parameter is -1L and lpszHeaders is not NULL, the function assumes that lpszHeaders is zero-terminated (ASCIIZ), and the length is calculated. See Remarks for specifics.
lpOptional [in]: A pointer to a buffer containing any optional data to be sent immediately after the request headers. This parameter is generally used for POST and PUT operations. The optional data can be the resource or information being posted to the server. This parameter can be NULL if there is no optional data to send.
dwOptionalLength [in]: The size of the optional data, in bytes. This parameter can be zero if there is no optional data to send.

Return value

Returns TRUE if successful, or FALSE otherwise. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

HttpSendRequest sends the specified request to the HTTP server and allows the client to specify additional headers to send along with the request.

The function also lets the client specify optional data to send to the HTTP server immediately following the request headers. This feature is generally used for "write" operations such as PUT and POST.

After the request is sent, the status code and response headers from the HTTP server are read. These headers are maintained internally and are available to client applications through the HttpQueryInfo function.

An application can use the same HTTP request handle in multiple calls to HttpSendRequest, but the application must read all data returned from the previous call before calling the function again.

In offline mode, HttpSendRequest returns ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND if the resource is not found in the Internet cache.

There two versions of HttpSendRequest —HttpSendRequestA (used with ANSI builds) and HttpSendRequestW (used with Unicode builds). If dwHeadersLength is -1L and lpszHeaders is not NULL, the following will happen: If HttpSendRequestA is called, the function assumes that lpszHeaders is zero-terminated (ASCIIZ), and the length is calculated. If HttpSendRequestW is called, the function fails with ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER.

Note The HttpSendRequestA function represents headers as ISO-8859-1 characters not ANSI characters. The HttpSendRequestW function represents headers as ISO-8859-1 characters converted to UTF-16LE characters. As a result, it is never safe to use the HttpSendRequestW function when the headers to be added can contain non-ASCII characters. Instead, an application can use the MultiByteToWideChar and WideCharToMultiByte functions with a Codepage parameter set to 28591 to map between ANSI characters and UTF-16LE characters.

Like all other aspects of the WinINet API, this function cannot be safely called from within DllMain or the constructors and destructors of global objects.

Note WinINet does not support server implementations. In addition, it should not be used from a service. For server implementations or services use Microsoft Windows HTTP Services (WinHTTP).

Requirements

Minimum supported client	Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only]
Header	Wininet.h
Library	Wininet.lib
DLL	Wininet.dll
Unicode and ANSI names	HttpSendRequestW (Unicode) and HttpSendRequestA (ANSI)