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curl_easy_init

Section: libcurl Manual (3)
Updated: February 03, 2016
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NAME

curl_easy_init - Start a libcurl easy session

SYNOPSIS

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURL *curl_easy_init( );

DESCRIPTION

This function must be the first function to call, and it returns a CURL easy handle that you must use as input to other functions in the easy interface. This call MUST have a corresponding call to curl_easy_cleanup(3) when the operation is complete.

If you did not already call curl_global_init(3), curl_easy_init(3) does it automatically. This may be lethal in multi-threaded cases, since curl_global_init(3) is not thread-safe, and it may result in resource problems because there is no corresponding cleanup.

You are strongly advised to not allow this automatic behaviour, by calling curl_global_init(3) yourself properly. See the description in libcurl(3) of global environment requirements for details of how to use this function.

RETURN VALUE

If this function returns NULL, something went wrong and you cannot use the other curl functions.

EXAMPLE

CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
  CURLcode res;
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://example.com");
  res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
  curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
}