curl / libcurl / API / Examples / getinmemory.c

getinmemory.c

/***************************************************************************
 *                                  _   _ ____  _
 *  Project                     ___| | | |  _ \| |
 *                             / __| | | | |_) | |
 *                            | (__| |_| |  _ <| |___
 *                             \___|\___/|_| \_\_____|
 *
 * Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
 *
 * This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which
 * you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms
 * are also available at https://curl.se/docs/copyright.html.
 *
 * You may opt to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute and/or sell
 * copies of the Software, and permit persons to whom the Software is
 * furnished to do so, under the terms of the COPYING file.
 *
 * This software is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
 * KIND, either express or implied.
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
 *
 ***************************************************************************/
/* <DESC>
 * Shows how the write callback function can be used to download data into a
 * chunk of memory instead of storing it in a file.
 * </DESC>
 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
 
#include <curl/curl.h>
 
struct MemoryStruct {
  char *memory;
  size_t size;
};
 
static size_t write_cb(void *contents, size_t size, size_t nmemb,
                                  void *userp)
{
  size_t realsize = size * nmemb;
  struct MemoryStruct *mem = (struct MemoryStruct *)userp;
 
  char *ptr = realloc(mem->memory, mem->size + realsize + 1);
  if(!ptr) {
    /* out of memory! */
    printf("not enough memory (realloc returned NULL)\n");
    return 0;
  }
 
  mem->memory = ptr;
  memcpy(&(mem->memory[mem->size]), contents, realsize);
  mem->size += realsize;
  mem->memory[mem->size] = 0;
 
  return realsize;
}
 
int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl;
  CURLcode res;
 
  struct MemoryStruct chunk;
 
  res = curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_ALL);
  if(res)
    return (int)res;
 
  chunk.memory = malloc(1);  /* grown as needed by the realloc above */
  chunk.size = 0;    /* no data at this point */
 
  /* init the curl session */
  curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
 
    /* specify URL to get */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.example.com/");
 
    /* send all data to this function  */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, write_cb);
 
    /* we pass our 'chunk' struct to the callback function */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, (void *)&chunk);
 
    /* some servers do not like requests that are made without a user-agent
       field, so we provide one */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "libcurl-agent/1.0");
 
    /* get it! */
    res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
 
    /* check for errors */
    if(res != CURLE_OK) {
      fprintf(stderr, "curl_easy_perform() failed: %s\n",
              curl_easy_strerror(res));
    }
    else {
      /*
       * Now, our chunk.memory points to a memory block that is chunk.size
       * bytes big and contains the remote file.
       *
       * Do something nice with it!
       */
 
      printf("%lu bytes retrieved\n", (unsigned long)chunk.size);
    }
 
    /* cleanup curl stuff */
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
 
  free(chunk.memory);
 
  /* we are done with libcurl, so clean it up */
  curl_global_cleanup();
 
  return (int)res;
}

Notice

This source code example is simplified and ignores return codes and error checks to a large extent. We do this to highlight the libcurl function calls and related options and reduce unrelated code.

A real-world application does of course properly check every return value and exit correctly at the first serious error.