1--- 2c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. 3SPDX-License-Identifier: curl 4Title: libcurl-easy 5Section: 3 6Source: libcurl 7See-also: 8 - curl_easy_cleanup (3) 9 - curl_easy_init (3) 10 - curl_easy_setopt (3) 11 - libcurl (3) 12 - libcurl-errors (3) 13 - libcurl-multi (3) 14Protocol: 15 - All 16Added-in: 7.1 17--- 18 19# NAME 20 21libcurl-easy - easy interface overview 22 23# DESCRIPTION 24 25When using libcurl's "easy" interface you init your session and get a handle 26(often referred to as an "easy handle"), which you use as input to the easy 27interface functions you use. Use curl_easy_init(3) to get the handle. 28 29You continue by setting all the options you want in the upcoming transfer, the 30most important among them is the URL itself (you cannot transfer anything 31without a specified URL). You might want to set some callbacks as well that 32are called from the library when data is available etc. For example 33CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION(3). curl_easy_setopt(3) is used for all this. 34 35CURLOPT_URL(3) is the only option you really must set, as otherwise there can 36be no transfer. Another commonly used option is CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3) that helps 37you see what libcurl is doing under the hood, which is useful when debugging 38for example. The curl_easy_setopt(3) man page has a full index of the over 300 39available options. 40 41If you at any point would like to blank all previously set options for a 42single easy handle, you can call curl_easy_reset(3) and you can also make a 43clone of an easy handle (with all its set options) using 44curl_easy_duphandle(3). 45 46When all is setup, you tell libcurl to perform the transfer using 47curl_easy_perform(3). It performs the entire transfer operation and does not 48return until it is done (successfully or not). 49 50After the transfer has been made, you can set new options and make another 51transfer, or if you are done, cleanup the session by calling 52curl_easy_cleanup(3). If you want persistent connections, you do not cleanup 53immediately, but instead run ahead and perform other transfers using the same 54easy handle. 55
