CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT(3)

💅 CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT(3) 💅

okay bestie, welcome to this page from the Library Functions Manual. This one is all about CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT, aka the “please do this FTP transfer in text mode” knob. ✨

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🎀 NAME 🎀

CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT — request a text based transfer for FTP 💖

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT, long text);

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so here’s the tea: setting the text parameter to 1 tells the library to use ASCII mode for FTP transfers, instead of the default binary transfer. Slay. On Win32 systems, it does not set the stdout to binary mode. Noted, bestie. 🫶

This option can be usable when transferring text data between systems with different views on certain characters, such as newlines or similar. Literally the “different systems, different vibes” situation. 🌈

⚠️ Real talk: libcurl does not do a complete ASCII conversion when doing ASCII transfers over FTP. This is a known limitation/flaw that nobody has rectified. libcurl simply sets the mode to ASCII and performs a standard transfer. So don’t expect full magical conversion, okay? 💀

🦋 DEFAULT 🦋

0, disabled. So it’s off unless you turn it on. 🙈

🌈 PROTOCOLS 🌈

This functionality affects all supported protocols. All of them. Periodt. 👑

🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "ftp://example.com/textfile");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT, 1L);
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

Added in curl 7.1.1. Vintage but still iconic. 🫶

💜 RETURN VALUE 💜

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

• CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK ✅
• non-zero means an error occurred ❌ — see libcurl-errors(3)

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• CURLOPT_CRLF(3) — go peek, bestie. ✨

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xoxo, from libcurl, dated 2026-10-12 💖 this was the CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT(3) page, mwah 💅