Lets call the web address here URL for clarity. An URL exists of the
protocol (http://), the computer address (www.domain.topleveldomain),
an optional port number (:8080) and the path access on that server
(/somedir/index.html). You can translate the computer address into an
IP address using the String to IP address or directly pass that address
to TCP Open. The port address is optional since the protocol specifies
a default port number (http:80, ftp:21, etc.)
Now the problem you have is that you need to talk http to the server.
That is in itself a string based protocol and can be easy but the
problem lies in the fact that there are several versions and making it
such that it does work with all versions can be a challange.
The biggest problem however is the SSL you want to have. SSL is really
an encryption layer which works on the socket level so
trying to do that in LabVIEW is a huge undertaking and I know of nobody
who got around doing this yet. The best bet would be to use another
software such as putty and tunnel through it. Now if you work on Linux
you could do that using the pipes VIs available there with which you
can invoke the external program and use pipes to transfer data from and
to that program which will relay them for you through a secure
connection to and from the server.
On Windows you would have to try the pipes library I have started to
develop on OpenG (www.openg.org). It is working for Windows but I
haven't done thorough tests with real world scenarios yet. The library
is to be considered beta and there isn't an OpenG Commander package
yet, so you would have to get it over CVS from the sourceforge servers.
Rolf Kalbermatter