CURLOPT_TIMEOUT

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

CURLOPT_TIMEOUT - set maximum time the request is allowed to take

SYNOPSIS

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, long timeout);

DESCRIPTION

Pass a long as parameter containing timeout - the maximum time in seconds that you allow the libcurl transfer operation to take. Normally, name lookups can take a considerable time and limiting operations risk aborting perfectly normal operations. This option may cause libcurl to use the SIGALRM signal to timeout system calls.

In unix-like systems, this might cause signals to be used unless CURLOPT_NOSIGNAL(3) is set.

If both CURLOPT_TIMEOUT(3) and CURLOPT_TIMEOUT_MS(3) are set, the value set last will be used.

Since this option puts a hard limit on how long time a request is allowed to take, it has limited use in dynamic use cases with varying transfer times. That is especially apparent when using the multi interface, which may queue the transfer, and that time is included. You are advised to explore CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT(3), CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_TIME(3) or using CURLOPT_PROGRESSFUNCTION(3) to implement your own timeout logic.

DEFAULT

Default timeout is 0 (zero) which means it never times out during transfer.

PROTOCOLS

All

EXAMPLE

CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");

  /* complete within 20 seconds */
  curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20L);

  curl_easy_perform(curl);
}

AVAILABILITY

Always

RETURN VALUE

Returns CURLE_OK. Returns CURLE_BAD_FUNCTION_ARGUMENT if set to a negative value or a value that when converted to milliseconds is too large.