CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT(3) Introduction to Library Functions

NAME

CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT - request a text based transfer for FTP

SYNOPSIS

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT, long text);

DESCRIPTION

A parameter set to 1 tells the library to use ASCII mode for FTP
transfers, instead of the default binary transfer. For Win32 systems
it does not set the stdout to binary mode. This option can be usable
when transferring text data between systems with different views on
certain characters, such as newlines or similar.

libcurl does not do a complete ASCII conversion when doing ASCII
transfers over FTP. This is a known limitation/flaw that nobody has
rectified. libcurl simply sets the mode to ASCII and performs a
standard transfer.

DEFAULT

0, disabled

PROTOCOLS

This functionality affects all supported protocols

EXAMPLE

int main(void)
{
CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
if(curl) {
CURLcode result;
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "ftp://example.com/textfile");
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT, 1L);
result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
}
}

AVAILABILITY

Added in curl 7.1.1

RETURN VALUE

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode indicating success or error.

CURLE_OK (0) means everything was OK, non-zero means an error
occurred, see libcurl-errors(3).

SEE ALSO

CURLOPT_CRLF(3)

libcurl 2026-01-08 CURLOPT_TRANSFERTEXT(3)