• Home
  • Line#
  • Scopes#
  • Navigate#
  • Raw
  • Download
1---
2c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel.se>, et al.
3SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
4Title: CURLOPT_READFUNCTION
5Section: 3
6Source: libcurl
7See-also:
8  - CURLOPT_POST (3)
9  - CURLOPT_READDATA (3)
10  - CURLOPT_SEEKFUNCTION (3)
11  - CURLOPT_UPLOAD (3)
12  - CURLOPT_UPLOAD_BUFFERSIZE (3)
13  - CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION (3)
14---
15
16# NAME
17
18CURLOPT_READFUNCTION - read callback for data uploads
19
20# SYNOPSIS
21
22~~~c
23#include <curl/curl.h>
24
25size_t read_callback(char *buffer, size_t size, size_t nitems, void *userdata);
26
27CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_READFUNCTION, read_callback);
28~~~
29
30# DESCRIPTION
31
32Pass a pointer to your callback function, as the prototype shows above.
33
34This callback function gets called by libcurl as soon as it needs to read data
35in order to send it to the peer - like if you ask it to upload or post data to
36the server. The data area pointed at by the pointer *buffer* should be
37filled up with at most *size* multiplied with *nitems* number of bytes
38by your function. *size* is always 1.
39
40Set the *userdata* argument with the CURLOPT_READDATA(3) option.
41
42Your function must return the actual number of bytes that it stored in the
43data area pointed at by the pointer *buffer*. Returning 0 signals
44end-of-file to the library and causes it to stop the current transfer.
45
46If you stop the current transfer by returning 0 "pre-maturely" (i.e before the
47server expected it, like when you have said you would upload N bytes and you
48upload less than N bytes), you may experience that the server "hangs" waiting
49for the rest of the data that is not sent.
50
51The read callback may return *CURL_READFUNC_ABORT* to stop the current
52operation immediately, resulting in a *CURLE_ABORTED_BY_CALLBACK* error
53code from the transfer.
54
55The callback can return *CURL_READFUNC_PAUSE* to cause reading from this
56connection to pause. See curl_easy_pause(3) for further details.
57
58**Bugs**: when doing TFTP uploads, you must return the exact amount of data
59that the callback wants, or it is considered the final packet by the server
60end and the transfer ends there.
61
62If you set this callback pointer to NULL, or do not set it at all, the default
63internal read function is used. It is doing an fread() on the FILE * userdata
64set with CURLOPT_READDATA(3).
65
66You can set the total size of the data you are sending by using
67CURLOPT_INFILESIZE_LARGE(3) or CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE_LARGE(3),
68depending on the type of transfer. For some transfer types it may be required
69and it allows for better error checking.
70
71# DEFAULT
72
73The default internal read callback is fread().
74
75# PROTOCOLS
76
77This is used for all protocols when doing uploads.
78
79# EXAMPLE
80
81~~~c
82size_t read_callback(char *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userdata)
83{
84  FILE *readhere = (FILE *)userdata;
85  curl_off_t nread;
86
87  /* copy as much data as possible into the 'ptr' buffer, but no more than
88     'size' * 'nmemb' bytes! */
89  size_t retcode = fread(ptr, size, nmemb, readhere);
90
91  nread = (curl_off_t)retcode;
92
93  fprintf(stderr, "*** We read %" CURL_FORMAT_CURL_OFF_T
94          " bytes from file\n", nread);
95  return retcode;
96}
97
98int main(int argc, char **argv)
99{
100  FILE *file = fopen(argv[1], "rb");
101  CURLcode result;
102
103  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
104  if(curl) {
105    /* set callback to use */
106    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_READFUNCTION, read_callback);
107
108    /* pass in suitable argument to callback */
109    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_READDATA, (void *)file);
110
111    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
112  }
113}
114~~~
115
116# AVAILABILITY
117
118CURL_READFUNC_PAUSE return code was added in 7.18.0 and CURL_READFUNC_ABORT
119was added in 7.12.1.
120
121# RETURN VALUE
122
123This returns CURLE_OK.
124