function HttpPost(URL, Params: string; Headers: TStringList; var ResultCode: integer; var Result: string; TimeoutMsec: integer): boolean; overload;
function HttpPost(URL, Params: string; Headers: TStringList; var ResultCode: integer; var Result: TMemoryStream; TimeoutMsec: integer): boolean; overload;

 

These functions send an HTTP POST request (with optional parameters) to a remote web server and returns the numeric result code as well as the actual data stream returned by the web server.
This is an overloaded function: the data stream can be returned either into a string variable (very handy when retrieving HTML web pages or XML) or as a TMemoryStream (useful when downloading binary streams like images, zip archives, executables, and so on).

 

Parameters

URL

The full URL to the web page/script to be called (both HTTP and HTTPS are supported here)

Params

A formatted string of (optional) parameters encoded with the HttpEnc function

Headers

(Optional) a string list of additional headers to be sent to the web server - can be nil if no additional headers are required

ResultCode

An integer variable that, after the call, will contain the result code sent by the remote web server

Result

A string or TMemoryStream variable that, after the call, will contain the data returned by the web server

TimeoutMSec

An integer value that specifies the request timeout in milliseconds (can be omitted, defaults to 5000)

 

Return value

Boolean

Returns True if the call succeeds (regardless of the result code), otherwise it will return False (for instance when the web server is unreachable)

 

Examples


// Sample HTTP POST as string
var
  ResCode: integer;
  Params, Result: string;
  AddHead: TStringList;
begin
  AddHead := TStringList.Create;
  Params := 'first_param=' + HttpEnc('my first parameter')
            + '&' + 'second_param=' + HttpEnc('my second parameter')
            + '&' + 'third_param=' + HttpEnc('my third parameter');
  if HttpPost('http://www.yourwebsite.com/form.php', Params, AddHead, ResCode, Result) then
  begin
    StringToFile(IntToStr(ResCode)+#13#10#13#10, 'c:\test\dbg_httpget.txt');
    AppendStringToFile(Result, 'c:\test\dbg_httppost.txt');  
  end;
  AddHead.Free;
end.
 
// Sample HTTP POST as binary stream (TMemoryStream)
var
  ResCode: integer;
  Params: string;
  Result: TMemoryStream;
begin
  Params := 'first_param=' + HttpEnc('my first parameter')
            + '&' + 'second_param=' + HttpEnc('my second parameter')
            + '&' + 'third_param=' + HttpEnc('my third parameter');
  Result := TMemoryStream.Create;
  try
    if HttpPost('http://srv.yourwebsite.com/form.php', Params, nil, ResCode, Result) then
     Result.SaveToFile('c:\test\returned_image.png');
  finally
    Result.Free;
  end;
end.