C libcurl get output into a string

The following answer is the C++ way to do it, with std::string, instead of null-terminated string. It still uses a callback function (there's no way around it), but also handles allocation error using try/catch.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <curl/curl.h>

size_t CurlWrite_CallbackFunc_StdString(void *contents, size_t size, size_t nmemb, std::string *s)
{
    size_t newLength = size*nmemb;
    try
    {
        s->append((char*)contents, newLength);
    }
    catch(std::bad_alloc &e)
    {
        //handle memory problem
        return 0;
    }
    return newLength;
}
int main()
{
    CURL *curl;
    CURLcode res;

    curl_global_init(CURL_GLOBAL_DEFAULT);

    curl = curl_easy_init();
    std::string s;
    if(curl)
    {

        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "curl.haxx.se");

        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0L); //only for https
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0L); //only for https
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, CurlWrite_CallbackFunc_StdString);
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, &s);
        curl_easy_setopt (curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1L); //remove this to disable verbose output


        /* Perform the request, res will get the return code */
        res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
        /* Check for errors */
        if(res != CURLE_OK)
        {
            fprintf(stderr, "curl_easy_perform() failed: %s\n",
                    curl_easy_strerror(res));
        }

        /* always cleanup */
        curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
    }

    std::cout<<s<<std::endl;

    std::cout<< "Program finished!" << std::endl;
}

You can set a callback function to receive incoming data chunks using curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, myfunc);

The callback will take a user defined argument that you can set using curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, p)

Here's a snippet of code that passes a buffer struct string {*ptr; len} to the callback function and grows that buffer on each call using realloc().

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <curl/curl.h>

struct string {
  char *ptr;
  size_t len;
};

void init_string(struct string *s) {
  s->len = 0;
  s->ptr = malloc(s->len+1);
  if (s->ptr == NULL) {
    fprintf(stderr, "malloc() failed\n");
    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
  }
  s->ptr[0] = '\0';
}

size_t writefunc(void *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, struct string *s)
{
  size_t new_len = s->len + size*nmemb;
  s->ptr = realloc(s->ptr, new_len+1);
  if (s->ptr == NULL) {
    fprintf(stderr, "realloc() failed\n");
    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
  }
  memcpy(s->ptr+s->len, ptr, size*nmemb);
  s->ptr[new_len] = '\0';
  s->len = new_len;

  return size*nmemb;
}

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl;
  CURLcode res;

  curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    struct string s;
    init_string(&s);

    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "curl.haxx.se");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, writefunc);
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, &s);
    res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

    printf("%s\n", s.ptr);
    free(s.ptr);

    /* always cleanup */
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
  return 0;
}