.\" ************************************************************************** .\" * _ _ ____ _ .\" * Project ___| | | | _ \| | .\" * / __| | | | |_) | | .\" * | (__| |_| | _ <| |___ .\" * \___|\___/|_| \_\_____| .\" * .\" * Copyright (C) 1998 - 2014, Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. .\" * .\" * This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which .\" * you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms .\" * are also available at http://curl.haxx.se/docs/copyright.html. .\" * .\" * You may opt to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute and/or sell .\" * copies of the Software, and permit persons to whom the Software is .\" * furnished to do so, under the terms of the COPYING file. .\" * .\" * This software is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY .\" * KIND, either express or implied. .\" * .\" ************************************************************************** .TH libcurl 3 "19 Sep 2014" "libcurl" "libcurl easy interface" .SH NAME libcurl-easy \- easy interface overview .SH DESCRIPTION When using libcurl's "easy" interface you init your session and get a handle (often referred to as an "easy handle"), which you use as input to the easy interface functions you use. Use \fIcurl_easy_init(3)\fP to get the handle. You continue by setting all the options you want in the upcoming transfer, the most important among them is the URL itself (you can't transfer anything without a specified URL as you may have figured out yourself). You might want to set some callbacks as well that will be called from the library when data is available etc. \fIcurl_easy_setopt(3)\fP is used for all this. \fICURLOPT_URL(3)\fP is only option you really must set, as otherwise there can be no transfer. Another commonly used option is \fICURLOPT_VERBOSE(3)\fP that will help you see what libcurl is doing under the hood, very useful when debugging for example. The \fIcurl_easy_setopt(3)\fP man page has a full index of the over 200 available options. If you at any point would like to blank all previously set options for a single easy handle, you can call \fIcurl_easy_reset(3)\fP and you can also make a clone of an easy handle (with all its set options) using \fIcurl_easy_duphandle(3)\fP. When all is setup, you tell libcurl to perform the transfer using \fIcurl_easy_perform(3)\fP. It will then do the entire operation and won't return until it is done (successfully or not). After the transfer has been made, you can set new options and make another transfer, or if you're done, cleanup the session by calling \fIcurl_easy_cleanup(3)\fP. If you want persistent connections, you don't cleanup immediately, but instead run ahead and perform other transfers using the same easy handle. .SH "SEE ALSO" .BR curl_easy_init "(3)," curl_easy_cleanup "(3)," curl_easy_setopt "(3), " .BR libcurl-errors "(3), " libcurl-multi "(3), " libcurl "(3) "