How do I POST a buffer of JSON using libcurl?

You can use CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS:

CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();

curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://example.com/api/endpoint");
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "{\"hi\" : \"there\"}");

curl_easy_perform(curl);

Since CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS does not modify the payload in any way, it is very convenient for POSTing JSON data. Also note that, when CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS is supplied, it automatically enables CURLOPT_POST so there is no need to provide CURLOPT_POST in the request.

There is example code for this here: http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/post-callback.html

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/* An example source code that issues a HTTP POST and we provide the actual
 * data through a read callback.
 */ 
#include 
#include 
#include 

const char data[]="this is what we post to the silly web server";

struct WriteThis {
  const char *readptr;
  int sizeleft;
};

static size_t read_callback(void *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userp)
{
  struct WriteThis *pooh = (struct WriteThis *)userp;

  if(size*nmemb sizeleft) {
    *(char *)ptr = pooh->readptr[0]; /* copy one single byte */ 
    pooh->readptr++;                 /* advance pointer */ 
    pooh->sizeleft--;                /* less data left */ 
    return 1;                        /* we return 1 byte at a time! */ 
  }

  return 0;                          /* no more data left to deliver */ 
}

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

  struct WriteThis pooh;

  pooh.readptr = data;
  pooh.sizeleft = strlen(data);

  curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    /* First set the URL that is about to receive our POST. */ 
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://example.com/index.cgi");

    /* Now specify we want to POST data */ 
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1L);

    /* we want to use our own read function */ 
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_READFUNCTION, read_callback);

    /* pointer to pass to our read function */ 
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_READDATA, &pooh);

    /* get verbose debug output please */ 
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1L);

    /*
      If you use POST to a 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. With HTTP 1.0 or without chunked transfer, you must
      specify the size in the request.
    */ 
#ifdef USE_CHUNKED
    {
      struct curl_slist *chunk = NULL;

      chunk = curl_slist_append(chunk, "Transfer-Encoding: chunked");
      res = curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, chunk);
      /* use curl_slist_free_all() after the *perform() call to free this
         list again */ 
    }
#else
    /* Set the expected POST size. If you want to POST large amounts of data,
       consider CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE_LARGE */ 
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE, (curl_off_t)pooh.sizeleft);
#endif

#ifdef DISABLE_EXPECT
    /*
      Using POST with HTTP 1.1 implies the use of a "Expect: 100-continue"
      header.  You can disable this header with CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER as usual.
      NOTE: if you want chunked transfer too, you need to combine these two
      since you can only set one list of headers with CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER. */ 

    /* A less good option would be to enforce HTTP 1.0, but that might also
       have other implications. */ 
    {
      struct curl_slist *chunk = NULL;

      chunk = curl_slist_append(chunk, "Expect:");
      res = curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, chunk);
      /* use curl_slist_free_all() after the *perform() call to free this
         list again */ 
    }
#endif

    /* Perform the request, res will get the return code */ 
    res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

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