Warning: this will make existing curl command lines that use metalink to
stop working.
Reasons for removal:
1. We've found several security problems and issues involving the
metalink support in curl. The issues are not detailed here. When
working on those, it become apparent to the team that several of the
problems are due to the system design, metalink library API and what
the metalink RFC says. They are very hard to fix on the curl side
only.
2. The metalink usage with curl was only very briefly documented and was
not following the "normal" curl usage pattern in several ways, making
it surprising and non-intuitive which could lead to further security
issues.
3. The metalink library was last updated 6 years ago and wasn't so
active the years before that either. An unmaintained library means
there's a security problem waiting to happen. This is probably reason
enough.
4. Metalink requires an XML parsing library, which is complex code (even
the smaller alternatives) and to this day often gets security
updates.
5. Metalink is not a widely used curl feature. In the 2020 curl user
survey, only 1.4% of the responders said that they'd are using it. In
2021 that number was 1.2%. Searching the web also show very few
traces of it being used, even with other tools.
6. The torrent format and associated technology clearly won for
downloading large files from multiple sources in parallel.
Cloes #7176
This directory is for libcurl programming examples. They are meant to show
some simple steps on how you can build your own application to take full
advantage of libcurl.
If you end up with other small but still useful example sources, please mail
them for submission in future packages and on the website.
Building
The Makefile.example is an example makefile that could be used to build these
examples. Just edit the file according to your system and requirements first.
Most examples should build fine using a command line like this:
`curl-config --cc --cflags --libs` -o example example.c
Some compilers don't like having the arguments in this order but instead
want you do reorganize them like:
`curl-config --cc` -o example example.c `curl-config --cflags --libs`
Please do not use the curl.se site as a test target for your
libcurl applications/experiments. Even if some of the examples use that site
as a URL at some places, it doesn't mean that the URLs work or that we expect
you to actually torture our website with your tests! Thanks.
Examples
Each example source code file is designed to be and work stand-alone and
rather self-explanatory. The examples may at times lack the level of error
checks you need in a real world, but that is then only for the sake of
readability: to make the code smaller and easier to follow.
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