---
c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
Title: CURLOPT_SEEKFUNCTION
Section: 3
Source: libcurl
See-also:
  - CURLOPT_DEBUGFUNCTION (3)
  - CURLOPT_IOCTLFUNCTION (3)
  - CURLOPT_SEEKDATA (3)
  - CURLOPT_STDERR (3)
Protocol:
  - FTP
  - HTTP
  - SFTP
Added-in: 7.18.0
---

# NAME

CURLOPT_SEEKFUNCTION - user callback for seeking in input stream

# SYNOPSIS

~~~c
#include <curl/curl.h>

/* These are the return codes for the seek callbacks */
#define CURL_SEEKFUNC_OK       0
#define CURL_SEEKFUNC_FAIL     1 /* fail the entire transfer */
#define CURL_SEEKFUNC_CANTSEEK 2 /* tell libcurl seeking cannot be done, so
                                    libcurl might try other means instead */

int seek_callback(void *clientp, curl_off_t offset, int origin);

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_SEEKFUNCTION, seek_callback);
~~~

# DESCRIPTION

Pass a pointer to your callback function, which should match the prototype
shown above.

This function gets called by libcurl to seek to a certain position in the
input stream and can be used to fast forward a file in a resumed upload
(instead of reading all uploaded bytes with the normal read
function/callback). It is also called to rewind a stream when data has already
been sent to the server and needs to be sent again. This may happen when doing
an HTTP PUT or POST with a multi-pass authentication method, or when an
existing HTTP connection is reused too late and the server closes the
connection. The function shall work like fseek(3) or lseek(3) and it gets
SEEK_SET, SEEK_CUR or SEEK_END as argument for *origin*, although libcurl
currently only passes SEEK_SET.

*clientp* is the pointer you set with CURLOPT_SEEKDATA(3).

The callback function must return *CURL_SEEKFUNC_OK* on success,
*CURL_SEEKFUNC_FAIL* to cause the upload operation to fail or
*CURL_SEEKFUNC_CANTSEEK* to indicate that while the seek failed, libcurl
is free to work around the problem if possible. The latter can sometimes be
done by instead reading from the input or similar.

If you forward the input arguments directly to fseek(3) or lseek(3), note that
the data type for *offset* is not the same as defined for curl_off_t on
many systems.

# DEFAULT

NULL

# %PROTOCOLS%

# EXAMPLE

~~~c
#include <unistd.h> /* for lseek */

struct data {
  int our_fd;
};
static int seek_cb(void *clientp, curl_off_t offset, int origin)
{
  struct data *d = (struct data *)clientp;
  lseek(d->our_fd, offset, origin);
  return CURL_SEEKFUNC_OK;
}

int main(void)
{
  struct data seek_data;
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SEEKFUNCTION, seek_cb);
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_SEEKDATA, &seek_data);
  }
}
~~~

# %AVAILABILITY%

# 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).
