对于这个答案，我参考了Software_Developer的答案。通过重新构建代码，我发现一些部分已弃用(gethostbyname())或不为操作提供错误处理(创建套接字，发送一些东西)。

下面的windows代码是用Visual Studio 2013和windows 8.1 64位以及windows 7 64位进行测试的。它将目标与www.google.com的Web服务器的IPv4 TCP连接。

#include <winsock2.h>
#include <WS2tcpip.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#pragma comment(lib,"ws2_32.lib")
using namespace std;
    int main (){
    // Initialize Dependencies to the Windows Socket.
    WSADATA wsaData;
    if (WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(2,2), &wsaData) != 0) {
        cout << "WSAStartup failed.\n";
        system("pause");
        return -1;
    }

    // We first prepare some "hints" for the "getaddrinfo" function
    // to tell it, that we are looking for a IPv4 TCP Connection.
    struct addrinfo hints;
    ZeroMemory(&hints, sizeof(hints));
    hints.ai_family = AF_INET;          // We are targeting IPv4
    hints.ai_protocol = IPPROTO_TCP;    // We are targeting TCP
    hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_STREAM;    // We are targeting TCP so its SOCK_STREAM

    // Aquiring of the IPv4 address of a host using the newer
    // "getaddrinfo" function which outdated "gethostbyname".
    // It will search for IPv4 addresses using the TCP-Protocol.
    struct addrinfo* targetAdressInfo = NULL;
    DWORD getAddrRes = getaddrinfo("www.google.com", NULL, &hints, &targetAdressInfo);
    if (getAddrRes != 0 || targetAdressInfo == NULL)
    {
        cout << "Could not resolve the Host Name" << endl;
        system("pause");
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }

    // Create the Socket Address Informations, using IPv4
    // We dont have to take care of sin_zero, it is only used to extend the length of SOCKADDR_IN to the size of SOCKADDR
    SOCKADDR_IN sockAddr;
    sockAddr.sin_addr = ((struct sockaddr_in*) targetAdressInfo->ai_addr)->sin_addr;    // The IPv4 Address from the Address Resolution Result
    sockAddr.sin_family = AF_INET;  // IPv4
    sockAddr.sin_port = htons(80);  // HTTP Port: 80

    // We have to free the Address-Information from getaddrinfo again
    freeaddrinfo(targetAdressInfo);

    // Creation of a socket for the communication with the Web Server,
    // using IPv4 and the TCP-Protocol
    SOCKET webSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
    if (webSocket == INVALID_SOCKET)
    {
        cout << "Creation of the Socket Failed" << endl;
        system("pause");
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }

    // Establishing a connection to the web Socket
    cout << "Connecting...\n";
    if(connect(webSocket, (SOCKADDR*)&sockAddr, sizeof(sockAddr)) != 0)
    {
        cout << "Could not connect";
        system("pause");
        closesocket(webSocket);
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }
    cout << "Connected.\n";

    // Sending a HTTP-GET-Request to the Web Server
    const char* httpRequest = "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: www.google.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n";
    int sentBytes = send(webSocket, httpRequest, strlen(httpRequest),0);
    if (sentBytes < strlen(httpRequest) || sentBytes == SOCKET_ERROR)
    {
        cout << "Could not send the request to the Server" << endl;
        system("pause");
        closesocket(webSocket);
        WSACleanup();
        return -1;
    }

    // Receiving and Displaying an answer from the Web Server
    char buffer[10000];
    ZeroMemory(buffer, sizeof(buffer));
    int dataLen;
    while ((dataLen = recv(webSocket, buffer, sizeof(buffer), 0) > 0))
    {
        int i = 0;
        while (buffer[i] >= 32 || buffer[i] == '\n' || buffer[i] == '\r') {
            cout << buffer[i];
            i += 1;
        }
    }

    // Cleaning up Windows Socket Dependencies
    closesocket(webSocket);
    WSACleanup();

    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

引用:

弃用gethostbyname

socket()的返回值

send()的返回值

2020年更新:我有一个新的答案来取代这个已经存在了8年的答案:https://stackoverflow.com/a/61177330/278976

在Linux上，我尝试了cppp -netlib、libcurl、curlpp、urdl、boost::asio，并考虑过Qt(但基于许可证拒绝了它)。所有这些都不是不完整的，有草率的界面，有糟糕的文档，没有维护或不支持https。

然后，在https://stackoverflow.com/a/1012577/278976的建议下，我尝试了POCO。哇，我真希望几年前就能看到。下面是一个使用POCO进行HTTP GET请求的示例:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/26026828/2817595

POCO是免费的、开源的(boost许可证)。不，我和这家公司没有任何关系;我真的很喜欢他们的界面。干得好，伙计们(和姑娘们)。

https://pocoproject.org/download.html

希望这能帮助到某人…我花了三天时间把所有这些库都试了一遍。

现在正在开发一种更新的、不太成熟的卷曲包装器，称为c++ Requests。下面是一个简单的GET请求:

#include <iostream>
#include <cpr.h>

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    auto response = cpr::Get(cpr::Url{"http://httpbin.org/get"});
    std::cout << response.text << std::endl;
}

它支持各种各样的HTTP动词和curl选项。这里有更多的使用文档。

免责声明:我是这个库的维护者。

我也有同样的问题。Libcurl真的很完整。如果您需要c++库，可能会对c++包装器curlpp感兴趣。neon是另一个有趣的C库，它也支持WebDAV。

如果你使用c++， curlpp看起来很自然。源代码发行版中提供了许多示例。 要获取URL的内容，你可以这样做(从示例中提取):

// Edit : rewritten for cURLpp 0.7.3
// Note : namespace changed, was cURLpp in 0.7.2 ...

#include <curlpp/cURLpp.hpp>
#include <curlpp/Options.hpp>

// RAII cleanup

curlpp::Cleanup myCleanup;

// Send request and get a result.
// Here I use a shortcut to get it in a string stream ...

std::ostringstream os;
os << curlpp::options::Url(std::string("http://example.com"));

string asAskedInQuestion = os.str();

参见curlpp源代码分发中的示例目录，有很多更复杂的情况，以及使用curlpp的简单完整的最小情况。

我的2美分…

如果您正在寻找在多个平台(Linux, Windows和Mac)支持的c++中的HTTP客户端库，以使用Restful web服务。您可以有以下选项。

QT网络库-允许应用程序发送网络请求并接收回复 c++ REST SDK -一个新兴的支持PPL的第三方HTTP库 Libcurl -它可能是本地世界中使用最多的http库之一。

这是我关于cURL的最小包装器，它能够以字符串的形式获取网页。例如，这对于单元测试很有用。它基本上是一个围绕C代码的RAII包装器。

在你的机器上安装libcurl libcurl-devel或等效的。

使用的例子:

CURLplusplus client;
string x = client.Get("http://google.com");
string y = client.Get("http://yahoo.com");

类的实现:

#include <curl/curl.h>


class CURLplusplus
{
private:
    CURL* curl;
    stringstream ss;
    long http_code;
public:
    CURLplusplus()
            : curl(curl_easy_init())
    , http_code(0)
    {

    }
    ~CURLplusplus()
    {
        if (curl) curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
    }
    std::string Get(const std::string& url)
    {
        CURLcode res;
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, url.c_str());
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1L);
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, write_data);
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, this);

        ss.str("");
        http_code = 0;
        res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
        if (res != CURLE_OK)
        {
            throw std::runtime_error(curl_easy_strerror(res));
        }
        curl_easy_getinfo(curl, CURLINFO_RESPONSE_CODE, &http_code);
        return ss.str();
    }
    long GetHttpCode()
    {
        return http_code;
    }
private:
    static size_t write_data(void *buffer, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userp)
    {
        return static_cast<CURLplusplus*>(userp)->Write(buffer,size,nmemb);
    }
    size_t Write(void *buffer, size_t size, size_t nmemb)
    {
        ss.write((const char*)buffer,size*nmemb);
        return size*nmemb;
    }
};