Simple C++ wrapper around libcurl HTTP GET

HttpRequest.hh

#include <curl/curl.h>
#include <string>

class HttpRequest {
public:
  HttpRequest(const std::string& url) : _url(url) { }

  const std::string getResponse() {
    doIt();
    return _buffer;
  }

private:
  const std::string _url;

  std::string _buffer;

  static int writeMemoryCallback(void *contents, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userp);

  void doIt();
};

void HttpRequest::doIt() {
  _buffer = "";

  CURL *curl;
  CURLcode res;

  curl = curl_easy_init();
  if (curl) {

  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, _url.c_str());
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, writeMemoryCallback);
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, (void *)this);

  res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
  if(res != CURLE_OK)
    fprintf(stderr, "curl_easy_perform() failed: %s\n",
    curl_easy_strerror(res));
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

int HttpRequest::writeMemoryCallback(void *contents, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userp) {
  HttpRequest* request = (HttpRequest*)userp;
  request->_buffer.append((char*) contents, size * nmemb);
  return size * nmemb;
}

__attribute__((constructor)) void init() {
  // Not thread-safe!
  curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_ALL);
}

__attribute__((destructor)) void fini() {
  // Not thread-safe, but anyway, who cares...
  curl_global_cleanup();
}