Save cURL content result into a string in C++

Using the 'new' C++11 lambda functionality, this can be done in a few lines of code.

#ifndef WIN32 #define __stdcall "" #endif //For compatibility with both Linux and Windows
std::string resultBody { };
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, &resultBody);
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, static_cast<size_t (__stdcall *)(char*, size_t, size_t, void*)>(
    [](char* ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void* resultBody){
        *(static_cast<std::string*>(resultBody)) += std::string {ptr, size * nmemb};
        return size * nmemb;
    }
));

CURLcode curlResult = curl_easy_perform(curl);
std::cout << "RESULT BODY:\n" << resultBody << std::endl;
// Cleanup etc

Note the __stdcall cast is needed to comply to the C calling convention (cURL is a C library)

You will have to use CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION to set a callback for writing. I can't test to compile this right now, but the function should look something close to;

static std::string readBuffer;

static size_t WriteCallback(void *contents, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userp)
{ 
    size_t realsize = size * nmemb;
    readBuffer.append(contents, realsize);
    return realsize;
}

Then call it by doing;

readBuffer.clear();
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, WriteCallback);
// ...other curl options
res = curl_easy_perform(curl);

After the call, readBuffershould have your contents.

Edit: You can use CURLOPT_WRITEDATA to pass the buffer string instead of making it static. In this case I just made it static for simplicity. A good page to look (besides the linked example above) is here for an explanation of the options.

Edit2: As requested, here's a complete working example without the static string buffer;

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


static size_t WriteCallback(void *contents, size_t size, size_t nmemb, void *userp)
{
    ((std::string*)userp)->append((char*)contents, size * nmemb);
    return size * nmemb;
}

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl;
  CURLcode res;
  std::string readBuffer;

  curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.google.com");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, WriteCallback);
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, &readBuffer);
    res = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);

    std::cout << readBuffer << std::endl;
  }
  return 0;
}