Manpages - libcurl-url.3

libcurl-url - URL interface overview

The URL interface provides functions for parsing and generating URLs.

You still only include <curl/curl.h> in your code.

Create a handle that holds URL info and resources with curl_url(3):

CURLU *h = curl_url();

When done with it, clean it up with curl_url_cleanup(3):

curl_url_cleanup(h);

When you need a copy of a handle, just duplicate it with curl_url_dup(3):

CURLU *nh = curl_url_dup(h);

By “setting” a URL to the handle with curl_url_set(3), the URL is parsed and stored in the handle. If the URL is not syntactically correct it will return an error instead.

    rc = curl_url_set(h, CURLUPART_URL,
                      "https://example.com:449/foo/bar?name=moo", 0);

The zero in the fourth argument is a bitmask for changing specific features.

If successful, this stores the URL in its individual parts within the handle.

When a handle already contains info about a URL, setting a relative URL will make it “redirect” to adapt to it.

rc = curl_url_set(h, CURLUPART_URL, “../test?another”, 0);

The `CURLU` handle represents a URL and you can easily extract that with curl_url_get(3):

char *url; rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_URL, &url, 0); curl_free(url);

The zero in the fourth argument is a bitmask for changing specific features.

When a URL has been parsed or parts have been set, you can extract those pieces from the handle at any time.

    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_HOST, &host, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_SCHEME, &scheme, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_USER, &user, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_PASSWORD, &password, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_PORT, &port, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_PATH, &path, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_QUERY, &query, 0);
    rc = curl_url_get(h, CURLUPART_FRAGMENT, &fragment, 0);

Extracted parts are not URL decoded unless the user also asks for it with the CURLU_URLDECODE flag set in the fourth bitmask argument.

Remember to free the returned string with curl_free(3) when you are done with it!

A user set individual URL parts, either after having parsed a full URL or instead of parsing such.

    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_HOST, "www.example.com", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_SCHEME, "https", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_USER, "john", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_PASSWORD, "doe", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_PORT, "443", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_PATH, "/index.html", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_QUERY, "name=john", 0);
    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_FRAGMENT, "anchor", 0);

Set parts are not URL encoded unless the user asks for it with the `CURLU_URLENCODE` flag.

An application can append a string to the right end of the query part with the `CURLU_APPENDQUERY` flag to curl_url_set(3).

Imagine a handle that holds the URL `https://example.com/?shoes=2`. An application can then add the string `hat=1` to the query part like this:

    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_QUERY, "hat=1", CURLU_APPENDQUERY);

It will even notice the lack of an ampersand (`&`) separator so it will inject one too, and the handle’s full URL will then equal `https://example.com/?shoes=2&hat=1`.

The appended string can of course also get URL encoded on add, and if asked to URL encode, the encoding process will skip the ’=’ character. For example, append `candy=N&N` to what we already have, and URL encode it to deal with the ampersand in the data:

    rc = curl_url_set(urlp, CURLUPART_QUERY, "candy=N&N",
                      CURLU_APPENDQUERY | CURLU_URLENCODE);

Now the URL looks like

    https://example.com/?shoes=2&hat=1&candy=N%26N`

The URL API was introduced in libcurl 7.62.0.

*curl_url*(3), *curl_url_cleanup*(3), *curl_url_get*(3), *curl_url_dup*(3), *curl_url_set*(3), *curl_url_strerror*(3), *CURLOPT_URL*(3)