CURLOPT_REFERER(3)

CURLOPT_REFERER3

The http referer header

Usage

#include <curl/curl.h>
CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_REFERER, char *where);

Overview

Pass a pointer to a null-terminated string as parameter. It is used to set the Referer: header field in the HTTP request sent to the remote server. You can set any custom header with CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER(3).

The application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option.

Using this option multiple times makes the last set string override the previous ones. Set it to NULL to disable its use again.

Default

NULL

Protocols

This functionality affects http only

Examples

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com");
    /* tell it where we found the link to this place */
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_REFERER, "https://example.org/me.html");
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

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).

Releases

7 releases since Debian 8 (Jessie); the text changed 6 times.

  1. 8
  2. 9
  3. 10
  4. 11
  5. 12
  6. 13
  7. Arch

Availability

Added in curl 7.1

From curl 8.23.0-1 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.