About the URL Access Manager

The URL Access Manager provides routines that allow your application to download data from or upload data to a Universal Resource Locator (URL) using four protocols:

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS). These protocols allow you to

download data with optional 40-bit RSA encryption
send HTML form information to a URL using the POST and the GET methods
obtain information about URLs; this information is known as URL properties
set certain URL properties

File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Using FTP, you can

download files and directories
upload files and directories
obtain URL properties
set certain URL properties

The URL Access Manager supports passive FTP connections (in which the client opens the data cconnection to the server) and active FTP connections (in which the server opens the data connection to the client).

A file protocol. With the file:/// protocol, you can download files and URL properties from the local host. URLs for the file protocol begin with file:///. The file protocol is useful for testing code on a computer that is not connected to a network.

In addition, the URL Access Manager provides firewall support, with support for HTTP proxy servers and for SOCKS gateways.

The high-level URL Access Manager functions for downloading and uploading data include options that allow you to specify the display of a progress indicator and the display of an authentication dialog box if authentication is required.

The URL Access Manager includes support for automatic decompression of compressed files. If version 4.0 of the Stuffit Engine is installed, the URL Access Manager also automatically extracts files from Stuffit archives.

The URL Access Manager defines a set of URL properties. Extensions can define additional properties and set their values.