## NAME

CURLOPT_WRITEDATA - custom pointer passed to the write callback

## SYNOPSIS

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, void *pointer);

## DESCRIPTION

A data pointer to pass to the write callback. If you use the CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION option, this is the pointer you'll get in that callback's 4th argument. If you don't use a write callback, you must make pointer a 'FILE *' (cast to 'void *') as libcurl will pass this to fwrite(3) when writing data.

The internal CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION will write the data to the FILE * given with this option, or to stdout if this option hasn't been set.

If you're using libcurl as a win32 DLL, you MUST use the CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION if you set this option or you will experience crashes.

## DEFAULT

By default, this is a FILE * to stdout.

## PROTOCOLS

Used for all protocols.

## EXAMPLE

A common technique is to use the write callback to store the incoming data into a dynamically growing allocated buffer, and then this CURLOPT_WRITEDATA is used to point to a struct or the buffer to store data in. Like in the getinmemory example: http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/getinmemory.html

## AVAILABILITY

Available in all libcurl versions. This option was formerly known as CURLOPT_FILE, the name CURLOPT_WRITEDATA was introduced in 7.9.7.

## RETURN VALUE

This will return CURLE_OK.

## SEE ALSO

CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, CURLOPT_READDATA

This HTML page was made with roffit.