I'm trying to figure out how the Microsoft XMLHTTPRequest object works
behind the scenes. I currently use it for transferring binary files. I
don't believe it will be able to handle large files very well, and I
want to be able to view the transfer status.
My goal is to write a component in VB for transferring files through an
SSL connection without relying on Microsoft's oversimplified XML
Component. I found API's
for encrypting strings and an API implementation of winsock from this
site:
http://www.vbrad.com/pf.asp?p=source/src_winsock_less.htm

The problem is that the senddata method and received event in the
SSLControl class only accepts a string of plain text. I need to send
binary data.
Do I encode it to plain text somehow or is there a way that involves
actually sending binary data to a port?

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Request for Question Clarification by mathtalk-ga on 23 Jul 2003 18:36 PDT

Hi, codemasterjs-ga:

HTTP is pretty unwieldy in how it encodes many text characters, not to
mention how binary characters might need to be "wrapped".

Have you considered using a Secure FTP approach instead of coding your
own file transfer utility?  For the purpose of transferring binary
files over the Internet, FTP would be a natural choice except for the
lack of security.

This lack is made up by new Secure FTP products, which may take
advantage of SSL too.  A "primer" can read here:

[Secure FTP 101]
http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200208/se_08_14_02a.html

but the list of vendors shown there is already out of date.

If you still want to encode binary characters as text, then I can give
you pointers.  On the other hand, you could (assuming you can write
the applications that communicate at both ends) use a TCP/IP port to
send binary data, e.g. for a single file, on a "custom port" over SSL,
if that really suits your needs.

regards, mathtalk-ga