libcurl C++: How to correctly install and use on CentOS 7

Question

Goal:

To correctly install and use libcurl C++ on CentOS 7.

Current output:

When I go to compile a program using libcurl with the command g++ somefile.cpp -lcurl -std=c++11 -o somefile, the following error is received:

[user@localhost ~]$ somefile.cpp -lcurl -std=c++11 -o somefile
somefile.cpp:10:23: fatal error: curl/curl.h: No such file or directory
#include <curl/curl.h>
                       ^
compilation terminated.

Details:

libcurl was installed via sudo yum install libcurl (and also an attempt with sudo yum install libcurl4-openssl-dev). From previous experiences with installing libcurl on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS, if I remember correctly I solved a similar issue by setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to a libcurl.so object as seen below, but this seems to have no effect on CentOS 7.

[user@localhost ~]$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib/libcurl.so.4
[user@localhost ~]$ sudo ldconfig

If I run the following command I can see the libcurl version which leads me to believe it has been correctly installed:

[user@localhost ~]$ curl --version
curl 7.29.0 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.29.0 NSS/3.53.1 zlib/1.2.7 libidn/1.28 libssh2/1.8.0
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp scp sftp smtp smtps telnet tftp 
Features: AsynchDNS GSS-Negotiate IDN IPv6 Largefile NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz unix-sockets

Please note: the following resources have been consulted before deciding to ask this question:

1. https://lynxbee.com/how-to-resolve-fatal-error-curl-curl-h-no-such-file-or-directory-for-ubuntu-linux/
2. Ubuntu - #include <curl/curl.h> no such file or directory
3. curl.h no such file or directory
4. How do I link libcurl to my c++ program in linux?

Summary question:

q1. How can this error be solved when trying to compile a C++ program using libcurl on CentOS 7?

Answer 1

You will need to install the libcurl-devel package as it contains the headers files you are missing.

The libcurl-devel package includes header files and libraries necessary for developing programs which use the libcurl library. It contains the API documentation of the library, too