---
c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel.se>, et al.
SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
Title: CURLOPT_POST
Section: 3
Source: libcurl
See-also:
  - CURLOPT_HTTPPOST (3)
  - CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS (3)
  - CURLOPT_PUT (3)
---

# NAME

CURLOPT_POST - make an HTTP POST

# SYNOPSIS

~~~c
#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_POST, long post);
~~~

# DESCRIPTION

A parameter set to 1 tells libcurl to do a regular HTTP post. This also makes
libcurl use a "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" header. This
is the most commonly used POST method.

Use one of CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS(3) or CURLOPT_COPYPOSTFIELDS(3)
options to specify what data to post and CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE(3) or
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE_LARGE(3) to set the data size.

Optionally, you can provide data to POST using the
CURLOPT_READFUNCTION(3) and CURLOPT_READDATA(3) options but then
you must make sure to not set CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS(3) to anything but
NULL. When providing data with a callback, you must transmit it using chunked
transfer-encoding or you must set the size of the data with the
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE(3) or CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE_LARGE(3)
options. To enable chunked encoding, you simply pass in the appropriate
Transfer-Encoding header, see the post-callback.c example.

You can override the default POST Content-Type: header by setting your own
with CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3).

Using POST with HTTP 1.1 implies the use of a "Expect: 100-continue" header.
You can disable this header with CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3) as usual.

If you use POST to an HTTP 1.1 server, you can send data without knowing the
size before starting the POST if you use chunked encoding. You enable this by
adding a header like "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" with
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3). With HTTP 1.0 or without chunked transfer, you
must specify the size in the request. (Since 7.66.0, libcurl automatically
uses chunked encoding for POSTs if the size is unknown.)

When setting CURLOPT_POST(3) to 1, libcurl automatically sets
CURLOPT_NOBODY(3) and CURLOPT_HTTPGET(3) to 0.

If you issue a POST request and then want to make a HEAD or GET using the same
reused handle, you must explicitly set the new request type using
CURLOPT_NOBODY(3) or CURLOPT_HTTPGET(3) or similar.

When setting CURLOPT_POST(3) to 0, libcurl resets the request type to
the default to disable the POST. Typically that would mean it's reset to GET.
Instead you should set a new request type explicitly as described above.

# DEFAULT

0, disabled

# PROTOCOLS

HTTP

# EXAMPLE

~~~c
int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode res;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/foo.bin");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1L);

    /* set up the read callback with CURLOPT_READFUNCTION */

    res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}
~~~

# AVAILABILITY

Along with HTTP

# RETURN VALUE

Returns CURLE_OK if HTTP is supported, and CURLE_UNKNOWN_OPTION if not.