CURLOPT_NOBODY - do the download request without getting the body

Added in curl 7.1

0, the body is transferred

A long parameter set to 1 tells libcurl to not include the body-part in the output when doing what would otherwise be a download. For HTTP(S), this makes libcurl do a HEAD request. For most other protocols it means just not asking to transfer the body data. For HTTP operations when CURLOPT_NOBODY(3) has been set, disabling this option (with 0) makes it a GET again - only if the method is still set to be HEAD. The proper way to get back to a GET request is to set CURLOPT_HTTPGET(3) and for other methods, use the POST or UPLOAD options. Enabling CURLOPT_NOBODY(3) means asking for a download without a body. If you do a transfer with HTTP that involves a method other than HEAD, you get a body (unless the resource and server sends a zero byte body for the specific URL you request).

int main(void) { CURL *curl = curl_easy_init(); if(curl) { curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com"); /* get us the resource without a body - use HEAD */ curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_NOBODY, 1L); /* Perform the request */ curl_easy_perform(curl); } }

CURLOPT_NOBODY - do the download request without getting the body

This functionality affects all supported protocols

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).

CURLOPT_HTTPGET(3), CURLOPT_MIMEPOST(3), CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS(3), CURLOPT_REQUEST_TARGET(3), CURLOPT_UPLOAD(3) libcurl 2025-06-16 CURLOPT_NOBODY(3)

#include <curl/curl.h> CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_NOBODY, long opt);