Re: IDL sockets

[Craig Markwardt <craigmnet(at)cow.physics.wisc.edu>]

It looks like I've gotten myself into a bit of a mess here.  It turns
out that the code I posted in *not* the official way to operate the
HTTP protocol.  I think it works because many web servers can act as
gateways or redirectors which will essentially execute the protocol
for you and return the results.  My web site server does this, but
some others do not.

I heard from an RSI employee that a library of object classes had been
constructed which did simple kinds of network protocols like HTTP and
FTP.  If this is important to you then you might want to voice your
encouragement to RSI now about including this before IDL 5.5 comes
out.

As for the question by Kelly Dean about getting images, I think the
answer is that the true HTTP protocol permits the return of a
content-type descriptor which tells you an image is coming.
Apparently this doesn't happen with the simple redirector code I
posted.

Craig

George Constantinides <gconstantinides@mhl.nsw.gov.au> writes:
>
> I tried it on our own web server and I am getting an error response from
> the server:  -ERROR-(501):  Gateway function not available,
> but at least the socket connection has worked.
> All I have to do now is undertand Error-501 on our type of web server.
> 
> Mark Hadfield wrote:
... deleted ...
> > I hadn't, but I was sufficiently intrigued to give it a go. I substituted a
> > local WWW site for Craig's and tried it out. It worked!  Now all I need to
> > do is load the text into a file, open it in a browser, and I can surf the
> > Web with IDL!
...

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Craig B. Markwardt, Ph.D.         EMAIL:    craigmnet@cow.physics.wisc.edu
Astrophysics, IDL, Finance, Derivatives | Remove "net" for better response
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