cURL is essentially a command line tool for getting or sending files using URL syntax. The cURL extension to PHP has been created to allow developers to use web resources from within a PHP script. The original expansions of cURL are “Client for URLs” or “Client URL Request Library”. It supports a range of common Internet protocols, currently including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, LDAP, LDAPS, DICT, TELNET and FILE.
The basic process to use Curl involves four steps:
- Initialise cURL
- Set options
- Execute query
- Close cURL
Most developers find the Set options step confusing. Curl is extremely configurable and there are a multitude of options that can be set. We will learn this in the next part.
