How to Retrieve Detailed cURL Request Info in PHP with curl_getinfo

Using curl_getinfo() to retrieve request details

curl_getinfo() returns an associative array with information about a completed cURL request. It should be called after curl_exec() and before curl_close().

Commonly accessed fields

url – final effective URL (CURLOPT_EFFECTIVE_URL).

http_code – HTTP response status code (CURLOPT_HTTP_CODE, also available as CURLOPT_RESPONSE_CODE from libcurl 7.10.8).

total_time – total transaction time in seconds (CURLOPT_TOTAL_TIME).

download_content_length – number of bytes downloaded (CURLOPT_CONTENT_LENGTH_DOWNLOAD).

upload_content_length – number of bytes uploaded (CURLOPT_CONTENT_LENGTH_UPLOAD).

Complete example

// Initialize a cURL session
$curl = curl_init();

// Set the target URL
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.example.com");

// Execute the request
$response = curl_exec($curl);

// Retrieve request information
$info = curl_getinfo($curl);

// Display selected metrics
echo "Request URL: " . $info['url'] . PHP_EOL;
echo "HTTP status code: " . $info['http_code'] . PHP_EOL;
echo "Total time: " . $info['total_time'] . " seconds" . PHP_EOL;
echo "Download size: " . $info['download_content_length'] . " bytes" . PHP_EOL;
echo "Upload size: " . $info['upload_content_length'] . " bytes" . PHP_EOL;

// Close the handle
curl_close($curl);

The script follows the typical workflow: initialize, set options, execute, call curl_getinfo() to obtain metrics, output the values, and finally close the session. These metrics are valuable for debugging, performance monitoring, or building tools such as web crawlers and API clients.