curl/docs/libcurl/opts/CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE.md
Daniel Stenberg 54ded66618
docs/libcurl: improve easy setopt examples
- always assign the curl_easy_perform() return code (and declare
  the necessary 'result' variable for it)

- always call curl_easy_cleanup() on the created easy handles

Closes #21364
2026-04-18 23:34:39 +02:00

1.6 KiB

c SPDX-License-Identifier Title Section Source See-also Protocol Added-in
Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. curl CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE 3 libcurl
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS (3)
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE_LARGE (3)
HTTP
MQTT
RTSP
7.2

NAME

CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE - size of POST data pointed to

SYNOPSIS

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE, long size);

DESCRIPTION

If you want to post static data to the server without having libcurl do a strlen() to measure the data size, this option must be used. When this option is used you can post fully binary data, which otherwise is likely to fail. If this size is set to -1, libcurl uses strlen() to get the size or relies on the CURLOPT_READFUNCTION(3) (if used) to signal the end of data.

If you post more than 2GB, use CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE_LARGE(3).

DEFAULT

-1

%PROTOCOLS%

EXAMPLE

#include <string.h> /* for strlen */

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    const char *data = "data to send";

    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");

    /* size of the POST data */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE, (long)strlen(data));

    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, data);

    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

%AVAILABILITY%

RETURN VALUE

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error occurred, see libcurl-errors(3).