libcurl-easy(3)

🎀 NAME 🎀

libcurl-easy(3) — easy interface overview. You're in the Library Functions Manual, bestie, and we're about to make libcurl's easy interface make sense. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so when you use libcurl's "easy" interface, you init your session and get a handle — usually called an "easy handle" — and that handle is what you use as input to the easy interface functions you use. To get the handle, call curl_easy_init(3). Slay. 🫶

Then you continue by setting all the options you want in the upcoming transfer. The most important one is the URL itself — you literally cannot transfer anything without a specified URL. You might also want to set some callbacks as well, which are called from the library when data is available, etc. Example: CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION(3). curl_easy_setopt(3) is used for all this. ✨

CURLOPT_URL(3) is the only option you really must set, because otherwise there can be no transfer. Another commonly used option is CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3), which helps you see what libcurl is doing under the hood — useful when debugging, for example. The curl_easy_setopt(3) man page has a full index of the over 300 available options. Iconic. 👑

If at any point you would like to blank all previously set options for a single easy handle, you can call curl_easy_reset(3). You can also make a clone of an easy handle (with all its set options) using curl_easy_duphandle(3). Obsessed with a clean slate. 🧚

When all is setup, you tell libcurl to perform the transfer using curl_easy_perform(3). It performs the entire transfer operation and does not return until it is done — successfully or not. No cap. 💀

After the transfer has been made, you can set new options and make another transfer, or if you are done, cleanup the session by calling curl_easy_cleanup(3). If you want persistent connections, you do not cleanup immediately, but instead run ahead and perform other transfers using the same easy handle. Periodt. 🌈

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• curl_easy_cleanup(3)
• curl_easy_init(3)
• curl_easy_setopt(3)
• libcurl(3)
• libcurl-errors(3)
• libcurl-multi(3)

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mwah 💋 — this page comes from libcurl, dated 2026-10-12, and its manual page name is libcurl-easy(3). 🎀