Added a default headers section and also made some minor details more

up-to-date with recent changes.
This commit is contained in:
Daniel Stenberg 2002-12-09 14:39:01 +00:00
parent 6ca4116555
commit c65e088caf
1 changed files with 148 additions and 77 deletions

View File

@ -255,6 +255,9 @@ When It Doesn't Work
possible of your code that uses libcurl, operating system name and version,
compiler name and version etc.
If CURLOPT_VERBOSE is not enough, you increase the level of debug data your
application receive by using the CURLOPT_DEBUGFUNCTION.
Getting some in-depth knowledge about the protocols involved is never wrong,
and if you're trying to do funny things, you might very well understand
libcurl and how to use it better if you study the appropriate RFC documents
@ -293,8 +296,8 @@ Upload Data to a Remote Site
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_UPLOAD, TRUE);
A few protocols won't behave properly when uploads are done without any prior
knowledge of the expected file size. HTTP PUT is one example [1]. So, set the
upload file size using the CURLOPT_INFILESIZE like this:
knowledge of the expected file size. So, set the upload file size using the
CURLOPT_INFILESIZE for all known file sizes like this[1]:
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, file_size);
@ -404,7 +407,7 @@ HTTP POSTing
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Content-Type: text/xml");
/* post binary data */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELD, binaryptr);
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, binaryptr);
/* set the size of the postfields data */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE, 23);
@ -726,6 +729,35 @@ Persistancy Is The Way to Happiness
CURLOPT_FORBID_REUSE to TRUE.
HTTP Headers Used by libcurl
When you use libcurl to do HTTP requeests, it'll pass along a series of
headers automaticly. It might be good for you to know and understand these
ones.
Host
This header is required by HTTP 1.1 and even many 1.0 servers and should
be the name of the server we want to talk to. This includes the port
number if anything but default.
Pragma
"no-cache". Tells a possible proxy to not grap a copy from the cache but
to fetch a fresh one.
Accept:
"image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */*". Cloned from a
browser once a hundred years ago.
Expect:
When doing multi-part formposts, libcurl will set this header to
"100-continue" to ask the server for an "OK" message before it proceeds
with sending the data part of the post.
Customizing Operations
There is an ongoing development today where more and more protocols are built
@ -738,101 +770,129 @@ Customizing Operations
libcurl is your friend here too.
If just changing the actual HTTP request keyword is what you want, like when
GET, HEAD or POST is not good enough for you, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST is there
for you. It is very simple to use:
CUSTOMREQUEST
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "MYOWNRUQUEST");
If just changing the actual HTTP request keyword is what you want, like
when GET, HEAD or POST is not good enough for you, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST
is there for you. It is very simple to use:
When using the custom request, you change the request keyword of the actual
request you are performing. Thus, by default you make GET request but you can
also make a POST operation (as described before) and then replace the POST
keyword if you want to. You're the boss.
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, "MYOWNRUQUEST");
HTTP-like protocols pass a series of headers to the server when doing the
request, and you're free to pass any amount of extra headers that you think
fit. Adding headers are this easy:
When using the custom request, you change the request keyword of the
actual request you are performing. Thus, by default you make GET request
but you can also make a POST operation (as described before) and then
replace the POST keyword if you want to. You're the boss.
struct curl_slist *headers=NULL; /* init to NULL is important */
Modify Headers
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Hey-server-hey: how are you?");
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "X-silly-content: yes");
HTTP-like protocols pass a series of headers to the server when doing the
request, and you're free to pass any amount of extra headers that you
think fit. Adding headers are this easy:
/* pass our list of custom made headers */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, headers);
struct curl_slist *headers=NULL; /* init to NULL is important */
curl_easy_perform(easyhandle); /* transfer http */
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Hey-server-hey: how are you?");
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "X-silly-content: yes");
curl_slist_free_all(headers); /* free the header list */
/* pass our list of custom made headers */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, headers);
... and if you think some of the internally generated headers, such as
User-Agent:, Accept: or Host: don't contain the data you want them to
contain, you can replace them by simply setting them too:
curl_easy_perform(easyhandle); /* transfer http */
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "User-Agent: 007");
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Host: munged.host.line");
curl_slist_free_all(headers); /* free the header list */
If you replace an existing header with one with no contents, you will prevent
the header from being sent. Like if you want to completely prevent the
"Accept:" header to be sent, you can disable it with code similar to this:
... and if you think some of the internally generated headers, such as
Accept: or Host: don't contain the data you want them to contain, you can
replace them by simply setting them too:
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Accept:");
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Accept: Agent-007");
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Host: munged.host.line");
Both replacing and cancelling internal headers should be done with careful
consideration and you should be aware that you may violate the HTTP protocol
when doing so.
Delete Headers
There's only one aspect left in the HTTP requests that we haven't yet
mentioned how to modify: the version field. All HTTP requests includes the
version number to tell the server which version we support. libcurl speak
HTTP 1.1 by default. Some very old servers don't like getting 1.1-requests
and when dealing with stubborn old things like that, you can tell libcurl to
use 1.0 instead by doing something like this:
If you replace an existing header with one with no contents, you will
prevent the header from being sent. Like if you want to completely prevent
the "Accept:" header to be sent, you can disable it with code similar to
this:
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION, CURLHTTP_VERSION_1_0);
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "Accept:");
Not all protocols are HTTP-like, and thus the above may not help you when you
want to make for example your FTP transfers to behave differently.
Both replacing and cancelling internal headers should be done with careful
consideration and you should be aware that you may violate the HTTP
protocol when doing so.
Sending custom commands to a FTP server means that you need to send the
comands exactly as the FTP server expects them (RFC959 is a good guide here),
and you can only use commands that work on the control-connection alone. All
kinds of commands that requires data interchange and thus needs a
data-connection must be left to libcurl's own judgement. Also be aware that
libcurl will do its very best to change directory to the target directory
before doing any transfer, so if you change directory (with CWD or similar)
you might confuse libcurl and then it might not attempt to transfer the file
in the correct remote directory.
Enforcing chunked transfer-encoding
A little example that deletes a given file before an operation:
By making sure a request uses the custom header "Transfer-Encoding:
chunked" when doing a non-GET HTTP operation, libcurl will switch over to
"chunked" upload, even though the size of the data to upload might be
known. By default, libcurl usually switches over to chunked upload
automaticly if the upload data size is unknown.
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "DELE file-to-remove");
HTTP Version
/* pass the list of custom commands to the handle */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_QUOTE, headers);
There's only one aspect left in the HTTP requests that we haven't yet
mentioned how to modify: the version field. All HTTP requests includes the
version number to tell the server which version we support. libcurl speak
HTTP 1.1 by default. Some very old servers don't like getting 1.1-requests
and when dealing with stubborn old things like that, you can tell libcurl
to use 1.0 instead by doing something like this:
curl_easy_perform(easyhandle); /* transfer ftp data! */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION,
CURLHTTP_VERSION_1_0);
curl_slist_free_all(headers); /* free the header list */
FTP Custom Commands
If you would instead want this operation (or chain of operations) to happen
_after_ the data transfer took place the option to curl_easy_setopt() would
instead be called CURLOPT_POSTQUOTE and used the exact same way.
Not all protocols are HTTP-like, and thus the above may not help you when
you want to make for example your FTP transfers to behave differently.
The custom FTP command will be issued to the server in the same order they
are added to the list, and if a command gets an error code returned back from
the server, no more commands will be issued and libcurl will bail out with an
error code (CURLE_FTP_QUOTE_ERROR). Note that if you use CURLOPT_QUOTE to
send commands before a transfer, no transfer will actually take place when a
quote command has failed.
Sending custom commands to a FTP server means that you need to send the
comands exactly as the FTP server expects them (RFC959 is a good guide
here), and you can only use commands that work on the control-connection
alone. All kinds of commands that requires data interchange and thus needs
a data-connection must be left to libcurl's own judgement. Also be aware
that libcurl will do its very best to change directory to the target
directory before doing any transfer, so if you change directory (with CWD
or similar) you might confuse libcurl and then it might not attempt to
transfer the file in the correct remote directory.
If you set the CURLOPT_HEADER to true, you will tell libcurl to get
information about the target file and output "headers" about it. The headers
will be in "HTTP-style", looking like they do in HTTP.
A little example that deletes a given file before an operation:
The option to enable headers or to run custom FTP commands may be useful to
combine with CURLOPT_NOBODY. If this option is set, no actual file content
transfer will be performed.
headers = curl_slist_append(headers, "DELE file-to-remove");
/* pass the list of custom commands to the handle */
curl_easy_setopt(easyhandle, CURLOPT_QUOTE, headers);
curl_easy_perform(easyhandle); /* transfer ftp data! */
curl_slist_free_all(headers); /* free the header list */
If you would instead want this operation (or chain of operations) to
happen _after_ the data transfer took place the option to
curl_easy_setopt() would instead be called CURLOPT_POSTQUOTE and used the
exact same way.
The custom FTP command will be issued to the server in the same order they
are added to the list, and if a command gets an error code returned back
from the server, no more commands will be issued and libcurl will bail out
with an error code (CURLE_FTP_QUOTE_ERROR). Note that if you use
CURLOPT_QUOTE to send commands before a transfer, no transfer will
actually take place when a quote command has failed.
If you set the CURLOPT_HEADER to true, you will tell libcurl to get
information about the target file and output "headers" about it. The
headers will be in "HTTP-style", looking like they do in HTTP.
The option to enable headers or to run custom FTP commands may be useful
to combine with CURLOPT_NOBODY. If this option is set, no actual file
content transfer will be performed.
FTP Custom CUSTOMREQUEST
If you do what list the contents of a FTP directory using your own defined
FTP command, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST will do just that. "NLST" is the
default one for listing directories but you're free to pass in your idea
of a good alternative.
Cookies Without Chocolate Chips
@ -1007,19 +1067,30 @@ SSL, Certificates and Other Tricks
[ seeding, passwords, keys, certificates, ENGINE, ca certs ]
Multiple Transfers Using the multi Interface
The easy interface as described in detail in this document is a synchronous
interface that transfers one file at a time and doesn't return until its
done.
The multi interface on the other hand, allows your program to transfer
multiple files in both directions at the same time, without forcing you to
use multiple threads.
[fill in lots of more multi stuff here]
Future
[ multi interface, sharing between handles, mutexes, pipelining ]
[ sharing between handles, mutexes, pipelining ]
-----
Footnotes:
[1] = HTTP PUT without knowing the size prior to transfer is indeed possible,
but libcurl does not support the chunked transfers on uploading that is
necessary for this feature to work. We'd gratefully appreciate patches
that bring this functionality...
[1] = libcurl 7.10.3 and later have the ability to switch over to chunked
Tranfer-Encoding in cases were HTTP uploads are done with data of an
unknown size.
[2] = This happens on Windows machines when libcurl is built and used as a
DLL. However, you can still do this on Windows if you link with a static