(PHP 4 >= 4.0.2, PHP 5)
curl_init — Initialize a cURL session
Initializes a new session and return a cURL handle for use with the curl_setopt(), curl_exec(), and curl_close() functions.
If provided, the CURLOPT_URL option will be set to its value. You can manually set this using the curl_setopt() function.
Returns a cURL handle on success, FALSE on errors.
Example #1 Initializing a new cURL session and fetching a web page
<?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);
?>