23/02/25, 19:27 cURL - Wikipedia

cURL
cURL (pronounced like "curl",[7] /kɜːrl/) is a
curl
computer software project providing a library
(libcurl) and command-line tool (curl) for
transferring data using various network protocols.
The name stands for "Client for URL".[8]
Example output from curl -O
Original author(s) Daniel Stenberg[1]
History
Developer(s) Contributors to the curl
curl was first released in 1996.[9]
It was originally project (https://curl.se/doc
named httpget and then became urlget before s/thanks.html)
adopting the current name of curl[10][11] The original Initial release 1996[2]
author and lead developer is the Swedish developer
Stable release 8.12.1[3] / 13 February
Daniel Stenberg, who created curl because he wanted 2025
to automate the fetching of currency exchange rates
Repository github.com/curl/curl (http
for IRC users.[2]
s://github.com/curl/curl)

Written in C
libcurl Platform Cross-platform
Type web client (supports e.g.
libcurl is a free client-side URL transfer library that
HTTPS, and FTP)
powers curl,[12] supporting cookies, DICT, FTP,
FTPS, Gopher, HTTP/1[13] (with HTTP/2 and License curl license[4][5] (inspired
HTTP/3 support), HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, HTTP on the MIT License[5]), also
proxy tunneling, HTTPS, IMAP, Kerberos, LDAP, ISC, 3-clause BSD, 4-
MQTT, POP3, RTSP, RTMP, SCP, SMTP, and SMB. clause BSD[6]
The library supports the file URI scheme, SFTP, Website curl.se (https://curl.se/)
Telnet, TFTP, file transfer resume, FTP uploading,
HTTP form-based upload, HTTPS certificates, LDAPS, proxies, and user-plus-password
authentication.[14]

The libcurl library is portable, as it builds and works identically on most platforms, including AIX,
AmigaOS, Android, BeOS, BlackBerry Tablet OS and BlackBerry 10,[15] OpenVMS, Darwin, DOS,
FreeBSD, HP-UX, HURD, iOS, IRIX, Linux, macOS, NetBSD, NetWare, OpenBSD, OS/2, QNX
Neutrino, RISC OS, Solaris, Symbian, Tru64, Ultrix, UnixWare, Microsoft Windows and
OpenHarmony.[16][17][18]

The libcurl library is thread-safe and IPv6 compatible. Bindings are available for more than 50
languages, including C/C++, Java, Julia (is bundled with), PHP and Python.[19]

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The libcurl library supports GnuTLS, mbed TLS, NSS, gskit on IBM i, SChannel on Windows,
Secure Transport on macOS and iOS, SSL/TLS through OpenSSL, BoringSSL, libreSSL, AmiSSL,
wolfSSL, BearSSL and rustls.[20]

curl
curl is a command-line tool for getting or sending data including files using URL syntax. curl
provides an interface to the libcurl library; it supports every protocol libcurl supports.[14]

curl supports HTTPS and performs SSL certificate verification by default when a secure protocol is
specified such as HTTPS. When curl connects to a remote server via HTTPS, it will obtain the
remote server certificate, then check against its CA certificate store the validity of the remote server
to ensure the remote server is the one it claims to be. Some curl packages are bundled with CA
certificate store file. There are several options to specify a CA certificate such as --cacert and --
capath. The --cacert option can be used to specify the location of the CA certificate store file.
In the Windows platform, if a CA certificate file is not specified, curl will look for a CA certificate
file name “curl-ca-bundle.crt” in the following order:

1. Directory where the curl program is located.

2. Current working directory.
3. Windows system directory.
4. Windows directory.
5. Directories specified in the %PATH% environment variables.[21]
curl will return an error message if the remote server is using a self-signed certificate, or if the
remote server certificate is not signed by a CA listed in the CA cert file. -k or --insecure option
can be used to skip certificate verification. Alternatively, if the remote server is trusted, the remote
server CA certificate can be added to the CA certificate store file.

Examples
Basic use of curl involves simply typing curl at the command line, followed by the URL of the
output to retrieve:

$ curl www.example.com

curl defaults to displaying the output it retrieves to the standard output specified on the system
(usually the terminal window). So running the command above, on most systems, displays the
HTML contents of www.example.com in plain text on the active terminal window. The -o flag can
be used to store the output in a file instead:

$ curl -o example.html www.example.com

More options that change the tool's behavior are available.

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See also
Free and open-
source software
portal

curl-loader – an open-source testing tool based on curl

libwww – an early library that comes with a command line interface
PowerShell – the iwr (Invoke-WebRequest) Windows PowerShell had functionality similar to
curl; class Web-client too.[22]
Web crawler – an internet bot that can crawl the web
Wget – similar command-line tool with no associated library but capable of recursive
downloading

References
1. Stenberg, Daniel (20 March 2015). "curl, 17 years old today" (https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2015/
03/20/curl-17-years-old-today/). daniel.haxx.se. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
2. "History of curl - How curl Became Like This" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170930163727/htt
ps://curl.se/docs/history.html). curl. Archived from the original (https://curl.se/docs/history.html)
on September 30, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2016. "Daniel simply adopted an existing
command-line open-source tool, httpget, that Brazilian Rafael Sagula had written and recently
release version 0.1 of. After a few minor adjustments, it did just what he needed. [...] HttpGet
1.0 was released on April 8th 1997 with brand new HTTP proxy support. [...] Stenberg was
spending time writing an IRC bot for an Amiga related channel on EFnet. He then came up with
the idea to make currency-exchange calculations available to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) users."
3. Daniel Stenberg. "Curl: [RELEASE] curl 8.12.1" (https://curl.se/mail/archive-2025-02/0005.htm
l). Retrieved 13 February 2025.
4. "curl License" (https://spdx.org/licenses/curl.html). spdx.org.
5. "curl - copyright" (https://curl.se/docs/copyright.html). curl.se. Archived (https://web.archive.org/
web/20240115151446/https://curl.se/docs/copyright.html) from the original on 2024-01-15.
Retrieved 2024-01-17.
6. Mehl, Max; Stenberg, Daniel (June 13, 2022). "Commit "copyright: make repository REUSE
compliant" " (https://github.com/curl/curl/commit/ad9bc5976d6661cd5b03ebc379313bf657701c
14). GitHub.com.
7. "curl - Frequently Asked Questions" (https://curl.se/docs/faq.html). curl.se.
8. Stenberg, Daniel. "Origin of the name" (https://everything.curl.dev/project/name). curl.se.
Retrieved 2021-03-27.
9. "History of curl" (https://curl.se/docs/history.html). fossies.org. Archived (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20210917071434/https://curl.se/docs/history.html) from the original on September 17,
2021. Retrieved May 11, 2021.
10. "Changelog" (https://curl.se/changes.html#4_0). 4 January 2020. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
"The first curl release. The tool was named urlget before this. And httpget before that."
11. Stenberg, Daniel (4 January 2020). "Restored complete curl changelog" (https://daniel.haxx.se/
blog/2020/01/04/restored-complete-curl-changelog/) (html). Haxx Se. Retrieved 2 January
2020.
12. Jones, M. Tim (8 September 2009). "Conversing through the Internet with cURL and libcurl -
Using libcurl with C and Python" (https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-curl/index.ht
ml). IBM Developerworks. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20150414143804/https://www.
ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-curl/index.html) from the original on 14 April 2015.
Retrieved 12 September 2018.

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13. Stenberg, Daniel (5 August 2019). "http09: disable HTTP/0.9 by default in both tool and library"
(https://web.archive.org/web/20190805160316/https://github.com/curl/curl/pull/4191/commits/2
723285b39a19151808c92efa859d3afae46898e). GitHub. Archived from the original (https://git
hub.com/curl/curl/pull/4191/commits/2723285b39a19151808c92efa859d3afae46898e) (html)
on 5 August 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2019. "As the plan has been laid out in Deprecated.
Update docs accordingly and verify in test 1174."
14. "curl - How To Use" (https://curl.se/docs/manpage.html). curl.se.
15. "Open Source Components for the Native SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS" (https://web.archive.
org/web/20130127102233/http://blackberry.github.com/ndk/components.html). Archived from
the original (https://blackberry.github.com/ndk/components.html) on 2013-01-27. Retrieved
2017-09-19.
16. "Third-party open-source software Curl" (https://gitee.com/openharmony/third_party_curl).
Gitee. OpenAtom OpenHarmony. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
17. "Third-party open-source software Curl" (https://github.com/openharmony/third_party_curl).
GitHub. OpenAtom OpenHarmony. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
18. "Tar and Curl Come to Windows!" (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/containers/tar-and-c
url-come-to-windows/ba-p/382409). techcommunity.microsoft.com. March 22, 2019.
19. "libcurl bindings" (https://curl.se/libcurl/bindings.html). curl.se.
20. "curl supports rustls | daniel.haxx.se" (https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/09/curl-supports-rustl
s/). 9 February 2021. Retrieved 2022-01-01.
21. "curl - SSL CA Certificates" (https://curl.se/docs/sslcerts.html). curl.se.
22. Del, Ryan (2 March 2018). "Comandi equivalenti a cURL e Wget per Windows command-line
con Powershell" (https://www.ryadel.com/curl-wget-comandi-equivalenti-alternative-windows-c
ommand-line-prompt-powershell/) [cURL and Wget equivalent commands for Windows
command-line with Powershell] (html). Ryadel (in Italian). Retrieved 4 January 2020. "Per
emulare il comportamento del comando Linux cURL, è sufficiente creare un file cURL.ps1
contenente la seguente riga di codice"

External links
Official website (https://curl.se/)
Comparison of curl vs other open source download tools (https://curl.se/docs/comparison-tabl
e.html)
Stenberg, Daniel (Nov 9, 2021) [2007]. "Comparison of curl vs wget" (https://daniel.haxx.se/doc
s/curl-vs-wget.html).

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