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IPGeolocation.io C++ SDK

Official C++ SDK for the IPGeolocation.io IP Geolocation API.

Look up IPv4, IPv6, and domains with /v3/ipgeo and /v3/ipgeo-bulk. Get geolocation, company, ASN, time zone, network, hostname, abuse, user-agent, currency, and security data from one API.

  • C++17 SDK built on libcurl
  • Typed responses plus raw JSON and XML methods
  • Single include header at ipgeolocation/ipgeolocation.hpp

Table of Contents

Install

Use the SDK from CMake in one of these ways.

The SDK requires libcurl with HTTP(S) support. Use libcurl 8.23.0 or newer, or a version patched by your operating system. The provided CMake build locates it with find_package(CURL REQUIRED).

Install with vcpkg

Install the package from the public vcpkg registry:

vcpkg install ipgeolocation-cpp-sdk

Then link it from your CMake project:

find_package(ipgeolocation CONFIG REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(your_target PRIVATE ipgeolocation::ipgeolocation)

If your local vcpkg checkout predates the merged port, update vcpkg first. The IPGeolocation.io custom registry at https://github.com/IPGeolocation/vcpkg-registry can be used as a fallback while your local baseline catches up.

Use with add_subdirectory

Add the SDK repo next to your project and link the exported target:

add_subdirectory(ip-geolocation-api-cpp-sdk)
target_link_libraries(your_target PRIVATE ipgeolocation::ipgeolocation)

Install and use with find_package

Install the SDK into a prefix and consume it with find_package:

cmake -S ip-geolocation-api-cpp-sdk -B build
cmake --build build
cmake --install build --prefix /your/install/prefix

Then link it from another CMake project:

find_package(ipgeolocation CONFIG REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(your_target PRIVATE ipgeolocation::ipgeolocation)

If your install prefix is not on CMake's default search path, set CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH when you configure the consuming project.

Public headers live under the ipgeolocation include directory:

#include <ipgeolocation/ipgeolocation.hpp>

CMake target: ipgeolocation::ipgeolocation GitHub repository: https://github.com/IPGeolocation/ip-geolocation-api-cpp-sdk

Quick Start

#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <ipgeolocation/ipgeolocation.hpp>

int main() {
    const char* api_key = std::getenv("IPGEO_API_KEY");
    if (api_key == nullptr) {
        throw std::runtime_error("set IPGEO_API_KEY first");
    }

    ipgeolocation::IpGeolocationClientConfig config;
    config.api_key = api_key;

    ipgeolocation::IpGeolocationClient client(config);

    ipgeolocation::LookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
    request.ip = "8.8.8.8";

    auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation(request);

    if (response.data.ip.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *response.data.ip << '\n'; // 8.8.8.8
    }
    if (response.data.location.has_value() && response.data.location->country_name.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *response.data.location->country_name << '\n'; // United States
    }
    if (response.data.location.has_value() && response.data.location->city.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *response.data.location->city << '\n'; // Mountain View
    }
    if (response.data.time_zone.has_value() && response.data.time_zone->name.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *response.data.time_zone->name << '\n'; // America/Los_Angeles
    }
    std::cout << response.metadata.status_code << '\n'; // 200
    if (response.metadata.credits_charged.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *response.metadata.credits_charged << '\n'; // 1
    }
}

Leave request.ip unset to resolve the caller IP.

At a Glance

Item Value
CMake target ipgeolocation::ipgeolocation
Include header ipgeolocation/ipgeolocation.hpp
Namespace ipgeolocation
Language standard C++17
Native dependency libcurl with HTTP(S) support
Supported Endpoints /v3/ipgeo, /v3/ipgeo-bulk
Supported Inputs IPv4, IPv6, domain
Main Data Returned Geolocation, company, ASN, time zone, network, hostname, abuse, user-agent, currency, security
Authentication API key
Response Formats Structured JSON, raw JSON, raw XML
Bulk Limit Up to 50,000 IPs or domains per request
Transport libcurl

Get Your API Key

Create an IPGeolocation.io account and copy an API key from your dashboard.

  1. Sign up: https://app.ipgeolocation.io/signup
  2. Verify your email if prompted
  3. Sign in: https://app.ipgeolocation.io/login
  4. Open your dashboard: https://app.ipgeolocation.io/dashboard
  5. Copy an API key from the API Keys section

Keep your IPGeolocation.io API key in an environment variable or secret manager.

Authentication

API Key

ipgeolocation::IpGeolocationClientConfig config;
if (const char* api_key = std::getenv("IPGEO_API_KEY"); api_key != nullptr) {
    config.api_key = api_key;
}

ipgeolocation::IpGeolocationClient client(config);

The API key is sent as the apiKey query parameter, so avoid logging full request URLs.

Plan Behavior

Feature availability depends on your plan and request parameters.

Capability Free Paid
Single IPv4 and IPv6 lookup Supported Supported
Domain lookup Not supported Supported
Bulk lookup Not supported Supported
Non-English lang Not supported Supported
Optional modules via include Not supported Supported
include = {"*"} Base response only All plan-available modules

Paid plans still need include for optional modules. fields and excludes only trim the response. They do not turn modules on or unlock paid data.

Client Configuration

Field Type Default Notes
api_key std::optional<std::string> unset Your IPGeolocation.io API key.
base_url std::string https://api.ipgeolocation.io Override the API base URL.
connect_timeout std::chrono::milliseconds 10000ms Time to open the connection. Must be greater than zero and must be less than or equal to read_timeout.
read_timeout std::chrono::milliseconds 30000ms Maximum time for the whole request, including the connection and the response. Must be greater than zero and at least as long as connect_timeout.
max_response_body_chars std::size_t 33554432 Largest response to read, in bytes. Must be greater than zero.

Config values are validated when the client is created. Request values are validated before each request is sent.

Request methods are safe to call concurrently on a shared client instance. Close() is idempotent, but call it only when no other thread is actively issuing requests.

Typed JSON parsing rejects payloads nested deeper than 256 levels.

If a successful response is too large, the SDK throws TransportError. If an API error is too large, you still get its HTTP status.

Available Methods

Method Returns Notes
LookupIpGeolocation(request = {}) ApiResponse<IpGeolocationResponse> Single lookup. Typed JSON response.
LookupIpGeolocationRaw(request = {}) ApiResponse<std::string> Single lookup. Raw JSON or XML string.
BulkLookupIpGeolocation(request) ApiResponse<std::vector<BulkLookupResult>> Bulk lookup. Typed JSON response.
BulkLookupIpGeolocationRaw(request) ApiResponse<std::string> Bulk lookup. Raw JSON or XML string.
Close() void Closes the client. Closed clients cannot be reused.
DefaultUserAgent() std::string Returns the SDK default outbound User-Agent header value.

Note

Typed methods support JSON only. Use the raw methods when you need XML output.

Request Options

Field Applies To Notes
ip Single lookup IPv4, IPv6, or domain. Leave it unset for caller IP lookup.
ips Bulk lookup Collection of 1 to 50,000 IPs or domains.
lang Single and bulk One of Language::kEn, kDe, kRu, kJa, kFr, kCn, kEs, kCs, kIt, kKo, kFa, kPt, or kAr (Arabic).
include Single and bulk Collection of module names such as security, abuse, user_agent, hostname, liveHostname, hostnameFallbackLive, geo_accuracy, dma_code, or *.
fields Single and bulk Collection of field paths to keep, for example location.country_name or security.threat_score.
excludes Single and bulk Collection of field paths to remove from the response.
user_agent Single and bulk Overrides the outbound User-Agent header. If you also pass a User-Agent header in headers, user_agent wins.
headers Single and bulk Extra request headers as std::map<std::string, std::string>.
output Single and bulk ResponseFormat::kJson or ResponseFormat::kXml.

Examples

The examples below assume you already have a configured client in scope:

ipgeolocation::IpGeolocationClientConfig config;
if (const char* api_key = std::getenv("IPGEO_API_KEY"); api_key != nullptr) {
    config.api_key = api_key;
}

ipgeolocation::IpGeolocationClient client(config);

Caller IP

Leave ip unset to look up the public IP of the machine making the request.

auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation();
if (response.data.ip.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.ip << '\n';
}

Domain Lookup

Domain lookup is a paid-plan feature.

ipgeolocation::LookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ip = "ipgeolocation.io";

auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation(request);
if (response.data.domain.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.domain << '\n';
}
if (response.data.location.has_value() && response.data.location->country_name.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.location->country_name << '\n';
}

Security and Abuse

ipgeolocation::LookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ip = "8.8.8.8";
request.include = {"security", "abuse"};

auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation(request);
if (response.data.security.has_value() && response.data.security->is_proxy.has_value()) {
    std::cout << (*response.data.security->is_proxy ? "true" : "false") << '\n';
}
if (response.data.abuse.has_value() && response.data.abuse->country.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.abuse->country << '\n';
}

Filtered Response

ipgeolocation::LookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ip = "8.8.8.8";
request.include = {"security"};
request.fields = {"location.country_name", "security.threat_score", "security.is_vpn"};
request.excludes = {"currency"};

auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation(request);
if (response.data.location.has_value() && response.data.location->country_name.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.location->country_name << '\n';
}
if (response.data.security.has_value() && response.data.security->threat_score.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.security->threat_score << '\n';
}

Raw XML

ipgeolocation::LookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ip = "8.8.8.8";
request.output = ipgeolocation::ResponseFormat::kXml;

auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocationRaw(request);
std::cout << response.data << '\n';

Bulk Lookup

ipgeolocation::BulkLookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ips = {"8.8.8.8", "1.1.1.1", "ipgeolocation.io"};

auto response = client.BulkLookupIpGeolocation(request);
for (const auto& result : response.data) {
    if (result.data.has_value() && result.data->ip.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *result.data->ip << '\n';
        continue;
    }
    if (result.error.has_value() && result.error->message.has_value()) {
        std::cout << *result.error->message << '\n';
    }
}

Raw Bulk JSON

ipgeolocation::BulkLookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ips = {"8.8.8.8", "1.1.1.1"};

auto response = client.BulkLookupIpGeolocationRaw(request);
std::cout << response.data << '\n';

User-Agent Parsing

To parse a visitor user-agent string, pass include = {"user_agent"} and send the visitor string in the request User-Agent header.

ipgeolocation::LookupIpGeolocationRequest request;
request.ip = "8.8.8.8";
request.include = {"user_agent"};
request.headers = {
    {"User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/146.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"},
};

auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation(request);
if (response.data.user_agent.has_value() && response.data.user_agent->name.has_value()) {
    std::cout << *response.data.user_agent->name << '\n';
}

Note

The user_agent request field overrides the SDK default outbound User-Agent header. It takes precedence over headers["User-Agent"]. response.data.user_agent is different. That field is the parsed visitor user-agent data returned by the API.

Response Metadata

Every method returns:

  • data: the typed response model or raw response body
  • metadata.status_code: HTTP status code
  • metadata.duration_ms: request duration measured by the SDK
  • metadata.credits_charged: parsed from X-Credits-Charged when present
  • metadata.successful_records: parsed from X-Successful-Record or X-Successful-Records when present
  • metadata.raw_headers: all response headers captured by the SDK

Example:

std::cout << response.metadata.status_code << '\n';
std::cout << response.metadata.duration_ms << '\n';
if (auto header = response.metadata.raw_headers.find("content-type");
    header != response.metadata.raw_headers.end() && !header->second.empty()) {
    std::cout << header->second.front() << '\n';
}

Header names are preserved in the case the server returned them. Response header names from api.ipgeolocation.io are lowercase (for example content-type, x-credits-charged).

Errors

The SDK throws exceptions derived from IpGeolocationError:

  • ValidationError: invalid settings, invalid request, invalid headers, or missing credentials
  • ClientClosedError: method called after Close()
  • TransportError: libcurl transport failure
  • RequestTimeoutError: connection or read timeout
  • SerializationError: invalid JSON in typed methods
  • ApiError: non-2xx API response, including HTTP status code and response body

ApiError gives you the HTTP status, the error message and the response body. If an error includes your API key, the SDK hides it. This also applies to errors in typed bulk results. Raw bulk lookups return the API response as received. If the error body is too large or the connection ends before it arrives in full, you still get the HTTP status.

Example:

try {
    auto response = client.LookupIpGeolocation(request);
} catch (const ipgeolocation::ValidationError& error) {
    std::cerr << "validation: " << error.what() << '\n';
} catch (const ipgeolocation::RequestTimeoutError& error) {
    std::cerr << "timeout: " << error.what() << '\n';
} catch (const ipgeolocation::TransportError& error) {
    std::cerr << "transport: " << error.what() << '\n';
} catch (const ipgeolocation::SerializationError& error) {
    std::cerr << "serialization: " << error.what() << '\n';
} catch (const ipgeolocation::ApiError& error) {
    std::cerr << error.status_code() << ' ' << error.what() << '\n';
}

RequestTimeoutError derives from TransportError, so catch RequestTimeoutError first if you need to distinguish it.

Troubleshooting

Missing API key

Set api_key before making a lookup.

headers must not contain CR or LF

Header names and values are validated before the request is sent. Trim user input before you pass it to the SDK.

typed methods support JSON only

Use LookupIpGeolocationRaw(...) or BulkLookupIpGeolocationRaw(...) when you need XML output.

response body exceeded maxResponseBodyChars

Increase max_response_body_chars in the client config if you expect unusually large raw responses. The default cap is 32 MiB. Typed JSON parsing still rejects payloads nested deeper than 256 levels.

connectTimeout must be <= readTimeout

connect_timeout must be less than or equal to read_timeout. Lower connect_timeout or raise read_timeout so the config validates.

Omitted response fields

Response fields are std::optional so omitted fields stay omitted. Check has_value() before dereferencing, or rely on value_or(...) when a default is safe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I request XML and still get typed models? No. Typed methods only support JSON. Use `LookupIpGeolocationRaw` or `BulkLookupIpGeolocationRaw` for XML.
Does domain lookup work on the free plan? No. Domain lookup is a paid-plan feature.
Why are so many response fields std::optional? Optional fields let the SDK preserve omitted API fields instead of inventing empty values for data the API did not send.
Can I use the SDK without an IP address? Yes. Leave `ip` unset on single lookup to resolve the caller IP.
What does Close() do? It marks the client closed and releases the internal transport state. Closed clients cannot be reused.

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