Windows vs Unix

There are a few differences in how to program curl the Unix way compared tothe Windows way. Perhaps the four most notable details are:

Different function names for socket operations

In curl, this is solved with defines and macros, so that the source looksthe same in all places except for the header file that defines them. Themacros in use aresclose(),sread() andswrite().

Init calls

Windows requires a couple of init calls for the socket stuff.

That is taken care of by thecurl_global_init() call, but if other libsalso do it etc there might be reasons for applications to alter thatbehavior.

We require WinSock version 2.2 and load this version during global init.

File descriptors

File descriptors for network communication and file operations are not aseasily interchangeable as in Unix.

We avoid this by not trying any funny tricks on file descriptors.

Stdout

When writing data to stdout, Windows makes end-of-lines the DOS way, thusdestroying binary data, although you do want that conversion if it is textcoming through... (sigh)

We set stdout to binary under windows

Ifdefs

Inside the source code, We make an effort to avoid#ifdef [Your OS]. Allconditionals that deal with featuresshould instead be in the format#ifdef HAVE_THAT_WEIRD_FUNCTION. Since Windows cannot run configure scripts,we maintain acurl_config-win32.h file in the lib directory that is supposedto look exactly like acurl_config.h file would have looked like on aWindows machine.

Generally speaking: curl is frequently compiled on several dozens of operatingsystems. Do not walk on the edge.