Features -- what can curl do

Related:
feature comparison table

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FEATURES
 
curl tool
 - config file support
 - multiple URLs in a single command line
 - range "globbing" support: [0-13], {one,two,three}
 - multiple file upload on a single command line
 - custom maximum transfer rate
 - redirectable stderr
 
libcurl supports
 - full URL syntax with no length limit
 - custom maximum download time
 - custom least download speed acceptable
 - custom output result after completion
 - guesses protocol from host name unless specified
 - uses .netrc
 - progress bar/time specs while downloading
 - "standard" proxy environment variables support
 - compiles on win32 (reported builds on 40+ operating systems)
 - selectable network interface for outgoing traffic
 - IPv6 support on unix and Windows
 - persistant connections
 - socks5 support
 - supports user name + password in proxy environment variables
 - operations through proxy "tunnel" (using CONNECT)
 - supports large files (>2GB and >4GB) both upload/download
 - replacable memory functions (malloc, free, realloc, etc)
 - asynchronous name resolving (*6)
 
HTTP
 - HTTP/1.1 compliant (optionally uses 1.0)
 - GET
 - PUT
 - HEAD
 - POST
 - multipart formpost (RFC1867-style)
 - authentication: Basic, Digest, NTLM(*1), GSS-Negotiate/Negotiate(*3) and
   SPNEGO (*4) to server and proxy
 - resume (both GET and PUT)
 - follow redirects
 - maximum amount of redirects to follow
 - custom HTTP request
 - cookie get/send fully parsed
 - reads/writes the netscape cookie file format
 - custom headers (replace/remove internally generated headers)
 - custom user-agent string
 - custom referer string
 - range
 - proxy authentication
 - time conditions
 - via http-proxy
 - retrieve file modification date
 - Content-Encoding support for deflate and gzip
 - "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" support for "uploads"
 
HTTPS (*1)
 - (all the HTTP features)
 - using client certificates
 - verify server certificate
 - via http-proxy
 - select desired encryption
 - force usage of a specific SSL version (SSLv2(*7), SSLv3 or TLSv1)
 
FTP
 - download
 - authentication
 - kerberos4 (*5)
 - active/passive using PORT, EPRT, PASV or EPSV
 - single file size information (compare to HTTP HEAD)
 - 'type=' URL support
 - dir listing
 - dir listing names-only
 - upload
 - upload append
 - upload via http-proxy as HTTP PUT
 - download resume
 - upload resume
 - custom ftp commands (before and/or after the transfer)
 - simple "range" support
 - via http-proxy
 - all operations can be tunneled through a http-proxy
 - customizable to retrieve file modification date
 - third party transfers
 - no dir depth limit
 
FTPS (*1)
 - explicit ftps:// support that use SSL on both connections
 - implicit "AUTH TSL" and "AUTH SSL" usage to "upgrade" plain ftp://
   connection to use SSL for both or one of the connections
 
TFTP
 - download / upload
 
TELNET
 - connection negotiation
 - custom telnet options
 - stdin/stdout I/O
 
LDAP (*2)
 - full LDAP URL support
 
DICT
 - extended DICT URL support
 
GOPHER
 - GET
 - via http-proxy
 
FILE
 - URL support
 - "uploads"
 - resume
 
FOOTNOTES
=========
 
  *1 = requires OpenSSL or GnuTLS
  *2 = requires OpenLDAP
  *3 = requires a GSSAPI-compliant library, such as Heimdal or similar.
  *4 = requires FBopenssl
  *5 = requires a krb4 library, such as the MIT one or similar.
  *6 = requires c-ares
  *7 = requires OpenSSL specificly, as GnuTLS only supports SSLv3 and TLSv1

Page updated December 7, 2005.
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