Simple use of libwww?

I have a basic question concerning the fundamental nature
of the library.

It seems to me, from what I've read so far--and I admit
I haven't read everything yet--that what libwww is, is a
core of a browser, and that while very modular, there are
some things that are inextricable.  That is, it doesn't
just fetch URL's for you, it also wants to parse your
document, know what's in it and model all its links in
its own tree.  It also seems to assume HTML for documents.

In my case, I am not building a browser, I am adding
URL support to an existing application whose main purpose
is not to browse the web.  The files I wish to retrieve
are often not HTML, but files of binary format that I
can not parse (and so can't tell the library what the
links are).  All I really want is to give it a URL and
have it put a document in a file for me, and tell me where
it is.  No parsing, no anchors, no history, no caching,
no HTML, no threads, no interruption.

Am I trying to use the library for something for which
it wasn't intended?  If so, does anyone have suggestions
for other libraries I might explore?  If not, can anyone
explain how to use the library in this very simple mode?



Tschüß,


Greg Holmberg

Senior Software Engineer, Electronic Publishing       ¬____\°_,____
Adobe Systems, Inc.		408/975-6173          -( )_____( )_\
333 West San Carlos Street      408/975-6629 Fax
San Jose, CA  95110
holmberg@adobe.com

"All my life, I've wanted to be somebody.
But I can see now, I should have been more specific."
-- A Lily Tomlin character, a bouncing aerobics instructor

Received on Friday, 16 February 1996 14:53:48 UTC