CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER

Section: curl_easy_setopt options (3)
Updated: November 04, 2020
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NAME

CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER - set error buffer for error messages

SYNOPSIS

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER, char *buf);

DESCRIPTION

Pass a char * to a buffer that libcurl may store human readable error messages on failures or problems. This may be more helpful than just the return code from curl_easy_perform(3) and related functions. The buffer must be at least CURL_ERROR_SIZE bytes big.

You must keep the associated buffer available until libcurl no longer needs it. Failing to do so will cause very odd behavior or even crashes. libcurl will need it until you call curl_easy_cleanup(3) or you set the same option again to use a different pointer.

Do not rely on the contents of the buffer unless an error code was returned. Since 7.60.0 libcurl will initialize the contents of the error buffer to an empty string before performing the transfer. For earlier versions if an error code was returned but there was no error detail then the buffer is untouched.

Consider CURLOPT_VERBOSE(3) and CURLOPT_DEBUGFUNCTION(3) to better debug and trace why errors happen.

DEFAULT

NULL

PROTOCOLS

All

EXAMPLE

curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
  CURLcode res;
  char errbuf[CURL_ERROR_SIZE];

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

  /* provide a buffer to store errors in */
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_ERRORBUFFER, errbuf);

  /* set the error buffer as empty before performing a request */
  errbuf[0] = 0;

  /* perform the request */
  res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

  /* if the request did not complete correctly, show the error
  information. if no detailed error information was written to errbuf
  show the more generic information from curl_easy_strerror instead.
  */
  if(res != CURLE_OK) {
    size_t len = strlen(errbuf);
    fprintf(stderr, "\nlibcurl: (%d) ", res);
    if(len)
      fprintf(stderr, "%s%s", errbuf,
              ((errbuf[len - 1] != '\n') ? "\n" : ""));
    else
      fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", curl_easy_strerror(res));
  }
}

AVAILABILITY

Always

RETURN VALUE

Returns CURLE_OK