PHP Manual: curl

curl_init

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.2, PHP 5)

curl_init -- Initialize a CURL session

Description

resource curl_init ( [string url] )

The curl_init() will initialize a new session and return a CURL handle for use with the curl_setopt(), curl_exec(), and curl_close() functions. If the optional url parameter is supplied then the CURLOPT_URL option will be set to the value of the parameter. You can manually set this using the curl_setopt() function.

Example 1. Initializing a new CURL session and fetching a webpage

<?php
// create a new curl resource
$ch = curl_init();

// set URL and other appropriate options
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://www.example.com/");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

// grab URL and pass it to the browser
curl_exec($ch);

// close curl resource, and free up system resources
curl_close($ch);
?>