1--- 2c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. 3SPDX-License-Identifier: curl 4Title: libcurl 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 16--- 17 18# NAME 19 20libcurl-easy - easy interface overview 21 22# DESCRIPTION 23 24When using libcurl's "easy" interface you init your session and get a handle 25(often referred to as an "easy handle"), which you use as input to the easy 26interface functions you use. Use curl_easy_init(3) to get the handle. 27 28You continue by setting all the options you want in the upcoming transfer, the 29most important among them is the URL itself (you cannot transfer anything 30without a specified URL as you may have figured out yourself). You might want 31to set some callbacks as well that are called from the library when data is 32available etc. curl_easy_setopt(3) is used for all this. 33 34CURLOPT_URL(3) is the only option you really must set, as otherwise 35there can be no transfer. Another commonly used option is 36CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3) that helps you see what libcurl is doing under the 37hood, which is useful when debugging for example. The 38curl_easy_setopt(3) man page has a full index of the almost 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 43make a clone 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 48not return 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 53cleanup immediately, but instead run ahead and perform other transfers using 54the same easy handle. 55
