This is a bare-bones pseudo code sketch using functions in the WinInet API:

   InternetConnect();            // Open an HTTP session

       HttpOpenRequest();      // Compose an HTTP "GET" transaction

       HttpSendRequest();      // Send the "GET" to the web server

       HttpQueryInfo();          // Determine the length of the response

       InternetReadFile();       // Read the response

       InternetCloseHandle();  // Close the HTTP request

   InternetCloaseHandle();    // Close the HTTP session

The WinHTTP API is a newer alternative but supported on fewer platforms,
IIRC.

Regards,
Will

Here's a minimal C++ program to fetch the document from an URL and save it
to a local file.

<code>

#include <windows.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <urlmon.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int _tmain(int argc, TCHAR* argv[])
{

 if (3 != argc)
 {
   _tprintf(_T("usage: %0 URL out-file-name"),argv[0]);
   return 1;
 }

 ::CoInitialize(0);
 TCHAR szFullName[MAX_PATH];
 ::GetFullPathName(argv[2],MAX_PATH,szFullName,0);
 HRESULT hr = ::URLDownloadToFile(
   0,
   argv[1],
   szFullName,
   0,
   0
   );
 ::CoUninitialize();

 if (FAILED(hr))
 {
   _tprintf(_T("Failed, hr=0x%08x\n"),hr);
   return 2;
 }

 return 0;
}

<code>

You can also very easily fetch from URLs by using the URL Moniker.  IIRC,
you can simply call CoGetObject, passing an URL as the "Display Name" and
requesting IStream as the interface.  From that IStream you can read the
document into memory, copy it to disk, or whatever.

-cd