cURL : What is cURL and what are the uses

cURL or Client for URLs is a command line tool for transferring files to computer networks. The program cURL is under the open cURL MIT license and has been ported to various operating systems. cURL is a part of most Linux distributions and Mac OS X. The associated library libcurl is used by many programs.

Features of cURL

Daniel Stenberg, was among the programmers who began in 1997 to write a tool that IRC participants should provide information about exchange rates are available, which had to be retrieved from web pages. He relied on the existing open-source tool. The program was Published in March 1998 as cURL.

The name Client for URLs suggests it is a command-line tool for downloading or uploading files through an Internet address. Supported protocols include HTTP , HTTPS , FTP , FTPS , DICT , LDAP , RTMP etc. Unlike the older wget from the year 1995, cURL can not only download files but also can upload files.

There are numerous PHP methods of reading web pages, cURL can be used as well.

Example usage of cURL

cURL shows the output usually on the terminal window. “curl normally displays a progress meter during operations, indicating the amount of transferred data, transfer speeds and estimated time left, etc.” (by official website).

Typical example include :

curl www.example.com

Boolean options can be enabled with –option name and this is the most important part of cURL in practical usage. Official curl.1 the man page provides the full documentation and list of options.