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Introduction

This document describes the URL Access Manager. You can use the URL Access Manager to perform data transfer to and from a URL from within your application.

Some of the features of URL Access Manager includes support for

  • automatic decompression of compressed files
  • automatic file extraction from Stuffit archives (with version 5.0 of Stuffit)
  • firewalls, HTTP proxy servers, and SOCKS gateways
  • URL Access Manager allows you to use any of the following protocols during download operations: File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), or a URL representing a local file (begins with file:///). You might use the latter to test your application on a computer that does not have access to a HTTP or FTP server. For upload operations, you must use an FTP URL.

    The URL Access Manager allows you to upload data to an FTP URL using either anonymous or authenticated FTP sessions and supports both passive and active FTP connections. You can use FTP to download and upload files and directories, as well as to set and obtain URL properties.

    If you use HTTP or HTTPS when downloading data, you will be able to perform data transfer with 40-bit RSA encryption, send HTML form information to a URL, and set and obtain URL properties.

    You should read the following sections to get more information about the URL Access Manager:

  • provide an introduction to programming the URL Access Manager.
  • "URL Access Manager Reference" describes the URL Access Manager API through version 2.0.3, including functions, data types, constants, and result codes.
  • provides a history of changes to this document.
  • All code listings in this document are shown in C, except for listings that describe resources, which are shown in Rez-input format. Many listings are taken from the SamplePost.h sample application, which is available through Apple's developer site at http://developer.apple.com/.

    Note: Although the sample code in this document has been compiled and tested to some degree, Apple Computer does not recommend that you directly incorporate this code into your application. For example, only limited error handling is shown--you should develop your own techniques for detecting and handling errors.

    URL Access Manager Tasks

    Document Revision History


    © 2000 Apple Computer, Inc. (Last Updated 20 July 2000)