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23 .TH CURLOPT_URL 3 "17 Jun 2014" "libcurl 7.37.0" "curl_easy_setopt options"
25 CURLOPT_URL \- provide the URL to use in the reqest
27 #include <curl/curl.h>
29 CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_URL, char *URL);
31 Pass in a pointer to the \fIURL\fP to work with. The parameter should be a
32 char * to a zero terminated string which must be URL-encoded in the following
35 scheme://host:port/path
37 For a greater explanation of the format please see RFC3986.
39 libcurl doesn't validate the syntax or use this variable until the transfer is
40 issued. Even if you set a crazy value here, \fIcurl_easy_setopt(3)\fP will
41 still return \fICURLE_OK\fP.
43 If the given URL lacks the scheme (such as "http://" or "ftp://" etc) then
44 libcurl will attempt to resolve the protocol based on one of the following
45 given host names: HTTP, FTP, DICT, LDAP, IMAP, POP3 or SMTP
47 Should the protocol, either that specified by the scheme or deduced by libcurl
48 from the host name, not be supported by libcurl then
49 \fICURLE_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL\fP will be returned from either the
50 \fIcurl_easy_perform(3)\fP or \fIcurl_multi_perform(3)\fP functions when you
51 call them. Use \fIcurl_version_info(3)\fP for detailed information of which
52 protocols are supported by the build of libcurl you are using.
54 \fICURLOPT_PROTOCOLS(3)\fP can be used to limit what protocols libcurl will
55 use for this transfer, independent of what libcurl has been compiled to
56 support. That may be useful if you accept the URL from an external source and
57 want to limit the accessibility.
59 \fICURLOPT_URL(3)\fP is the only option that \fBmust\fP be set before a
62 The host part of the URL contains the address of the server that you want to
63 connect to. This can be the fully qualified domain name of the server, the
64 local network name of the machine on your network or the IP address of the
65 server or machine represented by either an IPv4 or IPv6 address. For example:
67 http://www.example.com/
73 http://[2001:1890:1112:1::20]/
75 It is also possible to specify the user name, password and any supported login
76 options as part of the host, for the following protocols, when connecting to
77 servers that require authentication:
79 http://user:password@www.example.com
81 ftp://user:password@ftp.example.com
83 imap://user:password;options@mail.example.com
85 pop3://user:password;options@mail.example.com
87 smtp://user:password;options@mail.example.com
89 At present only IMAP, POP3 and SMTP support login options as part of the host.
90 For more information about the login options in URL syntax please see RFC2384,
91 RFC5092 and IETF draft draft-earhart-url-smtp-00.txt (Added in 7.31.0).
93 The port is optional and when not specified libcurl will use the default port
94 based on the determined or specified protocol: 80 for HTTP, 21 for FTP and 25
95 for SMTP, etc. The following examples show how to specify the port:
97 http://www.example.com:8080/ - This will connect to a web server using port
100 smtp://mail.example.com:587/ - This will connect to a SMTP server on the
101 alternative mail port.
103 The path part of the URL is protocol specific and whilst some examples are
104 given below this list is not conclusive:
107 The path part of a HTTP request specifies the file to retrieve and from what
108 directory. If the directory is not specified then the web server's root
109 directory is used. If the file is omitted then the default document will be
110 retrieved for either the directory specified or the root directory. The exact
111 resource returned for each URL is entirely dependent on the server's
114 http://www.example.com - This gets the main page from the web server.
116 http://www.example.com/index.html - This returns the main page by explicitly
119 http://www.example.com/contactus/ - This returns the default document from
120 the contactus directory.
123 The path part of an FTP request specifies the file to retrieve and from what
124 directory. If the file part is omitted then libcurl downloads the directory
125 listing for the directory specified. If the directory is omitted then
126 the directory listing for the root / home directory will be returned.
128 ftp://ftp.example.com - This retrieves the directory listing for the root
131 ftp://ftp.example.com/readme.txt - This downloads the file readme.txt from the
134 ftp://ftp.example.com/libcurl/readme.txt - This downloads readme.txt from the
137 ftp://user:password@ftp.example.com/readme.txt - This retrieves the readme.txt
138 file from the user's home directory. When a username and password is
139 specified, everything that is specified in the path part is relative to the
140 user's home directory. To retrieve files from the root directory or a
141 directory underneath the root directory then the absolute path must be
142 specified by prepending an additional forward slash to the beginning of the
145 ftp://user:password@ftp.example.com//readme.txt - This retrieves the readme.txt
146 from the root directory when logging in as a specified user.
149 The path part of a SMTP request specifies the host name to present during
150 communication with the mail server. If the path is omitted then libcurl will
151 attempt to resolve the local computer's host name. However, this may not
152 return the fully qualified domain name that is required by some mail servers
153 and specifying this path allows you to set an alternative name, such as
154 your machine's fully qualified domain name, which you might have obtained
155 from an external function such as gethostname or getaddrinfo.
157 smtp://mail.example.com - This connects to the mail server at example.com and
158 sends your local computer's host name in the HELO / EHLO command.
160 smtp://mail.example.com/client.example.com - This will send client.example.com in
161 the HELO / EHLO command to the mail server at example.com.
164 The path part of a POP3 request specifies the message ID to retrieve. If the
165 ID is not specified then a list of waiting messages is returned instead.
167 pop3://user:password@mail.example.com - This lists the available messages for
170 pop3://user:password@mail.example.com/1 - This retrieves the first message for
174 The path part of an IMAP request not only specifies the mailbox to list (Added
175 in 7.30.0) or select, but can also be used to check the UIDVALIDITY of the
176 mailbox, to specify the UID, SECTION (Added in 7.30.0) and PARTIAL octets
177 (Added in 7.37.0) of the message to fetch and to specify what messages to
178 search for (Added in 7.37.0).
180 imap://user:password@mail.example.com - Performs a top level folder list
182 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX - Performs a folder list on the
185 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX/;UID=1 - Selects the user's inbox
186 and fetches message 1
188 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX;UIDVALIDITY=50/;UID=2 - Selects
189 the user's inbox, checks the UIDVALIDITY of the mailbox is 50 and fetches
192 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX/;UID=3/;SECTION=TEXT - Selects the
193 user's inbox and fetches the text portion of message 3
195 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX/;UID=4/;PARTIAL=0.1024 - Selects
196 the user's inbox and fetches the first 1024 octets of message 4
198 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX?NEW - Selects the user's inbox and
199 checks for NEW messages
201 imap://user:password@mail.example.com/INBOX?SUBJECT%20shadows - Selects the
202 user's inbox and searches for messages containing "shadows" in the subject
205 For more information about the individual components of an IMAP URL please
209 The path part of a SCP request specifies the file to retrieve and from what
210 directory. The file part may not be omitted. The file is taken as an absolute
211 path from the root directory on the server. To specify a path relative to the
212 user's home directory on the server, prepend ~/ to the path portion. If the
213 user name is not embedded in the URL, it can be set with the
214 \fICURLOPT_USERPWD(3)\fP or \fICURLOPT_USERNAME(3)\fP option.
216 scp://user@example.com/etc/issue - This specifies the file /etc/issue
218 scp://example.com/~/my-file - This specifies the file my-file in the
219 user's home directory on the server
222 The path part of a SFTP request specifies the file to retrieve and from what
223 directory. If the file part is omitted then libcurl downloads the directory
224 listing for the directory specified. If the path ends in a / then a directory
225 listing is returned instead of a file. If the path is omitted entirely then
226 the directory listing for the root / home directory will be returned. If the
227 user name is not embedded in the URL, it can be set with the
228 \fICURLOPT_USERPWD(3)\fP or \fICURLOPT_USERNAME(3)\fP option.
230 sftp://user:password@example.com/etc/issue - This specifies the file
233 sftp://user@example.com/~/my-file - This specifies the file my-file in the
234 user's home directory
236 sftp://ssh.example.com/~/Documents/ - This requests a directory listing
237 of the Documents directory under the user's home directory
240 The path part of a LDAP request can be used to specify the: Distinguished
241 Name, Attributes, Scope, Filter and Extension for a LDAP search. Each field
242 is separated by a question mark and when that field is not required an empty
243 string with the question mark separator should be included.
245 ldap://ldap.example.com/o=My%20Organisation - This will perform a LDAP search
246 with the DN as My Organisation.
248 ldap://ldap.example.com/o=My%20Organisation?postalAddress - This will perform
249 the same search but will only return postalAddress attributes.
251 ldap://ldap.example.com/?rootDomainNamingContext - This specifies an empty DN
252 and requests information about the rootDomainNamingContext attribute for an
253 Active Directory server.
255 For more information about the individual components of a LDAP URL please
258 There's no official URL spec for RTMP so libcurl uses the URL syntax supported
259 by the underlying librtmp library. It has a syntax where it wants a
260 traditional URL, followed by a space and a series of space-separated
263 While space is not typically a "legal" letter, libcurl accepts them. When a
264 user wants to pass in a '#' (hash) character it will be treated as a fragment
265 and get cut off by libcurl if provided literally. You will instead have to
266 escape it by providing it as backslash and its ASCII value in hexadecimal:
269 There is no default URL. If this option isn't set, no transfer can be
275 curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://example.com");
277 POP3 and SMTP added in 7.31.0
279 Returns CURLE_OK on success or
280 CURLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY if there was insufficient heap space.
282 .BR CURLOPT_VERBOSE "(3), " CURLOPT_PROTOCOLS "(3), "
283 .BR curl_easy_perform "(3)"