1--- 2c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel.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) 14--- 15 16# NAME 17 18libcurl-easy - easy interface overview 19 20# DESCRIPTION 21 22When using libcurl's "easy" interface you init your session and get a handle 23(often referred to as an "easy handle"), which you use as input to the easy 24interface functions you use. Use curl_easy_init(3) to get the handle. 25 26You continue by setting all the options you want in the upcoming transfer, the 27most important among them is the URL itself (you cannot transfer anything 28without a specified URL as you may have figured out yourself). You might want 29to set some callbacks as well that are called from the library when data is 30available etc. curl_easy_setopt(3) is used for all this. 31 32CURLOPT_URL(3) is the only option you really must set, as otherwise 33there can be no transfer. Another commonly used option is 34CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3) that helps you see what libcurl is doing under the 35hood, which is useful when debugging for example. The 36curl_easy_setopt(3) man page has a full index of the almost 300 37available options. 38 39If you at any point would like to blank all previously set options for a 40single easy handle, you can call curl_easy_reset(3) and you can also 41make a clone of an easy handle (with all its set options) using 42curl_easy_duphandle(3). 43 44When all is setup, you tell libcurl to perform the transfer using 45curl_easy_perform(3). It performs the entire transfer operation and does 46not return until it is done (successfully or not). 47 48After the transfer has been made, you can set new options and make another 49transfer, or if you are done, cleanup the session by calling 50curl_easy_cleanup(3). If you want persistent connections, you do not 51cleanup immediately, but instead run ahead and perform other transfers using 52the same easy handle. 53