curl(1)                           2007-03-03                           curl(1)


NNAAMMEE
       curl - transfer a URL

SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
         curl [options] [URL...]

DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
       curl is a tool to transfer data from or to a server, using one of the
       supported protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, TFTP, DICT, TELNET, LDAP
       or FILE). The command is designed to work without user interaction.

       curl offers a busload of useful tricks like proxy support, user authen-
       tication, ftp upload, HTTP post, SSL (https:) connections, cookies,
       file transfer resume and more. As you will see below, the amount of
       features will make your head spin!

       curl is powered by libcurl for all transfer-related features. See
       _l_i_b_c_u_r_l_(_3_) for details.

       URL The URL syntax is protocol dependent. You'll find a detailed
       description in RFC 3986.

       You can specify multiple URLs or parts of URLs by writing part sets
       within braces as in:

           http://site.{one,two,three}.com

       or you can get sequences of alphanumeric series by using [] as in:

           ftp://ftp.numericals.com/file[1-100].txt
           ftp://ftp.numericals.com/file[001-100].txt    (with leading zeros)
           ftp://ftp.letters.com/file[a-z].txt

       No nesting of the sequences is supported at the moment, but you can use
       several ones next to each other:

           http://any.org/archive[1996-1999]/vol[1-4]/part{a,b,c}.html

       You can specify any amount of URLs on the command line. They will be
       fetched in a sequential manner in the specified order.

       Since curl 7.15.1 you can also specify step counter for the ranges, so
       that you can get every Nth number or letter:

           http://www.numericals.com/file[1-100:10].txt
           http://www.letters.com/file[a-z:2].txt

       If you specify URL without _p_r_o_t_o_c_o_l_:_/_/ prefix, curl will attempt to
       guess what protocol you might want. It will then default to HTTP but
       try other protocols based on often-used host name prefixes. For exam-
       ple, for host names starting with "ftp." curl will assume you want to
       speak FTP.

       Curl will attempt to re-use connections for multiple file transfers, so
       that getting many files from the same server will not do multiple con-
       nects / handshakes. This improves speed. Of course this is only done on
       files specified on a single command line and cannot be used between
       separate curl invokes.

PPRROOGGRREESSSS MMEETTEERR
       curl normally displays a progress meter during operations, indicating
       amount of transfered data, transfer speeds and estimated time left etc.

       However, since curl displays data to the terminal by default, if you
       invoke curl to do an operation and it is about to write data to the
       terminal, it disables the progress meter as otherwise it would mess up
       the output mixing progress meter and response data.

       If you want a progress meter for HTTP POST or PUT requests, you need to
       redirect the response output to a file, using shell redirect (>), --oo
       [[ffiillee]] or similar.

       It is not the same case for FTP upload as that operation is not spit-
       ting out any response data to the terminal.

       If you prefer a progress "bar" instead of the regular meter, --## is your
       friend.

OOPPTTIIOONNSS
       --aa//----aappppeenndd
           (FTP) When used in an FTP upload, this will tell curl to append to
           the target file instead of overwriting it. If the file doesn't
           exist, it will be created.

           If this option is used twice, the second one will disable append
           mode again.

       --AA//----uusseerr--aaggeenntt ""aaggeenntt ssttrriinngg""
           (HTTP) Specify the User-Agent string to send to the HTTP server.
           Some badly done CGIs fail if its not set to "Mozilla/4.0". To
           encode blanks in the string, surround the string with single quote
           marks. This can also be set with the --HH//----hheeaaddeerr option of course.

           If this option is set more than once, the last one will be the one
           that's used.

FFIILLEESS
       ~~//..ccuurrllrrcc
           Default config file, see --KK//----ccoonnffiigg for details.

EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTT
       http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]
           Sets proxy server to use for HTTP.

       HTTPS_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
           Sets proxy server to use for HTTPS.

       FTP_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
           Sets proxy server to use for FTP.

       ALL_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
           Sets proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is set.

       NO_PROXY <comma-separated list of hosts>
           list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy. If set to a
           asterisk '*' only, it matches all hosts.

EEXXIITT CCOODDEESS
       There exists a bunch of different error codes and their corresponding
       error messages that may appear during bad conditions. At the time of
       this writing, the exit codes are:

       "1"
        Unsupported protocol. This build of curl has no support for this pro-
        tocol.

       2
        Failed to initialize.

       3
        URL malformat. The syntax was not correct.

SSEEEE AALLSSOO
       ftp(1) wget(1)

AAUUTTHHOORRSS
       Daniel Stenberg is the main author, but the whole list of contributors
       is found in the separate THANKS file.

       Curl homepage is at http://curl.haxx.se and the FTP access link is
       ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/utilities/curl/


curl                              2007-03-03                           curl(1)