lots of proselint warnings addressed

README.md

@@ -18,10 +18,10 @@ reports, pull requests or critiques to me and I will improve this book
 accordingly.
 
 This book will never be finished. I intend to keep working on it and while I
-may at some point in time consider it fairly complete and covering most
-aspects of the project (even if only that seems like an insurmountable goal),
-the curl project will continue to move so there will always be things to
-update in the book as well.
+may at some point consider it fairly complete and covering most aspects of the
+project (even if only that seems like an insurmountable goal), the curl
+project will continue to move so there will always be things to update in the
+book as well.
 
 This book project started at the end of September 2015.
 
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ profit. I live and work in Stockholm, Sweden.
 All there is to know about me can be found on [my web
 site](https://daniel.haxx.se/).
 
-## Help!
+## Help
 
 If you find mistakes, omissions, errors or blatant lies in this document,
 please send me a refreshed version of the affected paragraph and I will make

building-binary.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ binary packages for popular operating systems.
 
 ## Installing from your package repository
 
-curl and libcurl have been around for a very long time and most Linux
+curl and libcurl have been around for a long time and most Linux
 distributions, BSD versions and other *nix versions have package repositories
 that allow you to install curl packages.
 

building-deps.md

@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 # Dependencies
 
-A key to making good software is to build on top of other great software.  By
-using libraries that many others use, we reinvent the same things fewer
-times and we get more reliable software as there are more people using the
-same code.
+A key to making good software is to build on top of other great software. By
+using libraries that many others use, we reinvent the same things fewer times
+and we get more reliable software as there are more people using the same
+code.
 
 A whole slew of features that curl provides require that it is built to use
 one or more external libraries. They are then dependencies of curl. None of

building-source.md

@@ -12,9 +12,9 @@ to the world by other friendly people and organizations.
 The source code consists of a large number of files containing C
 code. Generally speaking, the same set of files are used to build binaries for
 all platforms and computer architectures that curl supports. curl can be built
-and run on a vast number of different platforms. If you use a rare operating
-system yourself, chances are that building curl from source is the
-easiest or perhaps the only way to get curl.
+and run on a vast number of platforms. If you use a rare operating system
+yourself, chances are that building curl from source is the easiest or perhaps
+the only way to get curl.
 
 Making it easy to build curl is a priority to the curl project, although we
 don't always necessarily succeed!
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ CMake approach.
 
 There are two different build environments to cater for people's different
 opinions and tastes. The configure based build is arguably the more mature and
-more complete build system and should probably be considered the default one.
+more convering build system and should probably be considered the default one.
 
 ### Autotools
 

building.md

@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ more machine-readable format on this URL: `https://curl.haxx.se/info`.
 
 ## off git!
 
-Of course, when building from source you can also always opt to build the very
+Of course, when building from source you can also always opt to build the
 latest version that exist in the [git
 repository](https://github.com/curl/curl). It could however be a bit more
 fragile and probably requires slightly more attention to detail.

callback-header.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ received. *ptr* points to the delivered data, and the size of that data is
 "full" headers, one by one, to this callback.
 
 The data passed to this function will not be zero terminated! You cannot, for
-example, use printf's "%s" operator to display the contents nor strcpy to copy
+example, use printf's `%s` operator to display the contents nor strcpy to copy
 it.
 
 This callback should return the number of bytes actually taken care of. If

callback-progress.md

@@ -14,9 +14,9 @@ The `xfer_callback` function must match this prototype:
 
 If this option is set and `CURLOPT_NOPROGRESS` is set to 0 (zero), this
 callback function gets called by libcurl with a frequent interval. While data
-is being transferred it will be called very frequently, and during slow
-periods like when nothing is being transferred it can slow down to about one
-call per second.
+is being transferred it will be called frequently, and during slow periods
+like when nothing is being transferred it can slow down to about one call per
+second.
 
 The **clientp** pointer points to the private data set with
 `CURLOPT_XFERINFODATA`:

callback-write.md

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ data get passed to the write callback, you can get up to
 This function may be called with zero bytes data if the transferred file is empty.
 
 The data passed to this function will not be zero terminated! You cannot, for
-example, use printf's "%s" operator to display the contents nor strcpy to copy
+example, use printf's `%s` operator to display the contents nor strcpy to copy
 it.
 
 This callback should return the number of bytes actually taken care of. If

cmdline-configfile.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ## Config file
 
-You can easily end up with curl command lines that use a very large number of
-command-line options, making them rather hard to work with. Sometimes the length
-of the command line you want to enter even hits the maximum length your
+You can easily end up with curl command lines that use a large number of
+command-line options, making them rather hard to work with. Sometimes the
+length of the command line you want to enter even hits the maximum length your
 command-line system allows. The Microsoft Windows command prompt being an
 example of something that has a fairly small maximum line length.
 
@@ -71,11 +71,11 @@ Unix-like systems and `_curlrc` on Windows.
 
 The default config file is checked for in the following places in this order:
 
-1. curl tries to find the "home directory": It first checks for the CURL_HOME and
-then the HOME environment variables.  Failing that, it uses `getpwuid()` on
-Unix-like systems (which returns the home directory given the current user in your
-system). On Windows, it then checks for the APPDATA variable, or as a last
-resort the '%USERPROFILE%\Application Data'.
+1. curl tries to find the "home directory": It first checks for the CURL_HOME
+and then the HOME environment variables. Failing that, it uses `getpwuid()` on
+Unix-like systems (which returns the home directory given the current user in
+your system). On Windows, it then checks for the APPDATA variable, or as a
+last resort the '%USERPROFILE%\Application Data'.
 
 2. On Windows, if there is no _curlrc file in the home directory, it checks for one
 in the same directory the curl executable is placed. On Unix-like systems, it will

cmdline-globbing.md

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ three digits all the time:
 
     curl -O http://example.com/[001-100].png
 
-Or maybe you only want even numbered images so you tell curl a step counter
+Or maybe you only want even-numbered images so you tell curl a step counter
 too. This example range goes from 0 to 100 with an increment of 2:
 
     curl -O http://example.com/[0-100:2].png
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ of the brackets used for the ranges:
 
 You can use several globs in the same URL which then will make curl iterate
 over those, too. To download the images of Ben, Alice and Frank, in both the
-resolutions 100x100 and 1000x1000, a command line could look like:
+resolutions 100 * 100 and 1000 * 1000, a command line could look like:
 
     curl -O http://example.com/{Ben,Alice,Frank}-{100x100,1000x1000}.jpg
 

cmdline-listopts.md

@@ -10,11 +10,11 @@ are looking for. `curl --help` or simply `curl -h` will get you a list of all
 existing options with a brief explanation. If you don't really know what
 you are looking for, you probably won't be entirely satisfied.
 
-Then you can instead opt to use `curl --manual` which will output the
-entire man page for curl plus an appended tutorial for the most common use
-cases. That is a very thorough and complete document on how each option
-works amassing several thousand lines of documentation. To wade through that is also a
-tedious work and we encourage use of a search function through those text
+Then you can instead opt to use `curl --manual` which will output the entire
+man page for curl plus an appended tutorial for the most common use
+cases. That is a thorough and complete document on how each option works
+amassing several thousand lines of documentation. To wade through that is also
+a tedious work and we encourage use of a search function through those text
 masses. Some people will appreciate the man page in its [web
 version](https://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html).
 

cmdline-passwords.md

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ insecure.
 There are several ways to avoid this, and the key is, of course, then to avoid
 protocols or authentication schemes that sends credentials in the plain over
 the network. Easiest is perhaps to make sure you use encrypted versions of
-protocols.  Use HTTPS instead of HTTP, use FTPS instead of FTP and so on.
+protocols. Use HTTPS instead of HTTP, use FTPS instead of FTP and so on.
 
 If you need to stick to a plain text and insecure protocol, then see if you
 can switch to using an authentication method that avoids sending the

cmdline-urls.md

@@ -20,15 +20,15 @@ the URL without curl noticing or caring and it will just pass them on.
 
 ### Scheme
 
-URLs start with the "scheme", which is the official name for the "http://"
+URLs start with the "scheme", which is the official name for the `http://`
 part. That tells which protocol the URL uses. The scheme must be a known one
 that this version of curl supports or it will show an error message and
 stop. Additionally, the scheme must neither start with nor contain any
 whitespace.
 
 ### The scheme separator
 
-The scheme identifier is separated from the rest of the URL by the "://"
+The scheme identifier is separated from the rest of the URL by the `://`
 sequence. That is a colon and two forward slashes. There exists URL formats
 with only one slash, but curl doesn't support any of them. There are two
 additional notes to be aware of, about the number of slashes:
@@ -64,12 +64,12 @@ incorrect format:
 
 As a convenience, curl also allows users to leave out the scheme part from
 URLs. Then it guesses which protocol to use based on the first part of the
-host name. That guessing is very basic as it just checks if the first part of
-the host name matches one of a set of protocols, and assumes you meant to use
-that protocol. This heuristic is based on the fact that servers traditionally
-used to be named like that. The protocols that are detected this way are FTP,
-DICT, LDAP, IMAP, SMTP and POP3. Any other host name in a scheme-less URL will
-make curl default to HTTP.
+host name. That guessing is basic, as it just checks if the first part of the
+host name matches one of a set of protocols, and assumes you meant to use that
+protocol. This heuristic is based on the fact that servers traditionally used
+to be named like that. The protocols that are detected this way are FTP, DICT,
+LDAP, IMAP, SMTP and POP3. Any other host name in a scheme-less URL will make
+curl default to HTTP.
 
 You can modify the default protocol to something other than HTTP with the
 `--proto-default` option.
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ keeps previously used connections alive and around for a while after they were
 used so that subsequent requests to the same hosts can reuse an already
 established connection.
 
-Of course, they can only be kept alive for as long as the curl tool is running,
-but it is a very good reason for trying to get several transfers done within
-the same command line instead of running several independent curl command line
-invocations.
+Of course, they can only be kept alive for as long as the curl tool is
+running. It is a good reason for trying to get several transfers done
+within the same command line instead of running several independent curl
+command line invocations.

cmdline-versions.md

@@ -10,16 +10,16 @@ to modify certain aspects of its operation.
 
 With the curl project's rather speedy release chain with a new release
 shipping every eight weeks, it is almost inevitable that you are at least not
-always using the very latest released version of curl. Sometimes you may even
-use a curl version that is a few years old.
+always using the latest released version of curl. Sometimes you may even use a
+curl version that is a few years old.
 
 All command-line options described in this book were, of course, added to curl
-at some point in time, and only a very small portion of them were available
-that fine spring day in 1998 when curl first shipped. You may have reason to
-check your version of curl and crosscheck with the curl man page for when
-certain options were added. This is especially important if you want to take a
-curl command line using a modern curl version back to an older system that
-might be running an older installation.
+at some point and only a small portion of them were available that fine spring
+day in 1998 when curl first shipped. You may have reason to check your version
+of curl and crosscheck with the curl man page for when certain options were
+added. This is especially important if you want to take a curl command line
+using a modern curl version back to an older system that might be running an
+older installation.
 
 The developers of curl are working hard to not change existing behavior
 though. Command lines written to use curl in 1998, 2003 or 2010 should all be

cmdline.md

@@ -54,12 +54,12 @@ command-line options through a file—or from stdin—using the -K option.
 
 ## Garbage in, garbage out
 
-curl has very little will of its own. It tries to please you and your wishes
-to a very large extent. It also means that it will try to play with what you
-give it. If you misspell an option, it might do something unintended. If you
-pass in a slightly illegal URL, chances are curl will still deal with it and
-proceed. It means that you can pass in crazy data in some options and you can
-have curl pass on that crazy data in its transfer operation.
+curl has little will of its own. It tries to please you and your wishes to a
+large extent. It also means that it will try to play with what you give it. If
+you misspell an option, it might do something unintended. If you pass in a
+slightly illegal URL, chances are curl will still deal with it and proceed. It
+means that you can pass in crazy data in some options and you can have curl
+pass on that crazy data in its transfer operation.
 
 This is a design choice, as it allows you to really tweak how curl does its
 protocol communications and you can have curl massage your server

curl-bugs.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ Any problem can be considered a bug. A weirdly phrased wording in the manual
 that prevents you from understanding something is a bug. A surprising side
 effect of combining multiple options can be a bug—or perhaps it should be
 better documented? Perhaps the option doesn't do at all what you expected it
-to? That's a problem and we should fix it!
+to? That's a problem and we should fix it.
 
 ### Problems must be known to get fixed
 
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ problems exist so that we can fix them.
 
 ### Fixing the problems
 
-Software engineering is, to a very large degree, about fixing problems. To fix a
+Software engineering is, to a large degree, about fixing problems. To fix a
 problem a developer needs to understand how to repeat it and to do that the
 debugging person needs to be told what set of circumstances that made the
 problem trigger.
@@ -66,8 +66,8 @@ the protocol layer.
 The test suite is meant to be possible to run after you have built curl
 yourself and there are a fair number of volunteers who also help out by
 running the test suite automatically a few times per day to make sure the
-latest commits get a run. This way, we hopefully discover the worst flaws
-pretty soon after they were introduced.
+latest commits get a run. This way, we discover the worst flaws pretty soon
+after they were introduced.
 
 We don't test everything and even when we try to test things there will always
 be subtle details that get through and that we, sometimes years after the

curl-comm.md

@@ -16,13 +16,13 @@ of the reasons why we frown upon users who take discussions privately or try
 to e-mail individual team members about development issues, questions,
 debugging or whatever.
 
-In this day and age, mailing lists may be considered sort of the old style of
+In this day, mailing lists may be considered sort of the old style of
 communication—no fancy web forums or similar. Using a mailing list is
 therefore becoming an art that isn't practised everywhere and may be a bit
 strange and unusual to you. But fear not. It is just about sending emails to
 an address that then sends that e-mail out to all the subscribers. Our mailing
-lists have at most a few thousand subscribers. If you are mailing for the first
-time, it might be good to read a few old mails first to get to learn the
+lists have at most a few thousand subscribers. If you are mailing for the
+first time, it might be good to read a few old mails first to get to learn the
 culture and what's considered good practice.
 
 The mailing lists and the bug tracker have changed hosting providers a few

curl-devteam.md

@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 Daniel Stenberg is the founder and self-proclaimed leader of the
 project. Everybody else that participates or contributes in the project has
-thus arrived at a later point in time. Some contributors worked for a while
-and then left again. Most contributors hang around only for a short while to
-get their bug fixed or feature merged or similar. Counting all contributors
-we know the names of, we have received help from more than 1700 individuals.
+thus arrived at a later point. Some contributors worked for a while and then
+left again. Most contributors hang around only for a short while to get their
+bug fixed or feature merged or similar. Counting all contributors we know the
+names of, we have received help from more than 1700 individuals.
 
 The list of people that have repeatedly shown up in discussions and commits
 during the last several years include these stellar individuals:

curl-etiquette.md

@@ -35,8 +35,8 @@ or "reply to all", and not just reply to the author of the single mail you
 reply to.
 
 We are actively discouraging replying back to the single person by setting the
-Reply-To: field in outgoing mails back to the mailing list address, making it
-harder for people to mail the author only by mistake.
+`Reply-To:` field in outgoing mails back to the mailing list address, making
+it harder for people to mail the author only by mistake.
 
 #### Use a sensible subject
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ after the quotes that relate to your comment. Then you continue downwards
 again.
 
 When most of the quotes have been removed and you have added your own words,
-you are done!
+you are done.
 
 #### HTML is not for mails
 
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ reply to.
 Change the subject name to something sensible and related to the subject,
 preferably even the actual subject of the single mail you wanted to reply to.
 
-#### Please tell us how you solved the problem!
+#### Please tell us how you solved the problem
 
 Many people mail questions to the list, people spend some of their time and
 make an effort in providing good answers to these questions.

curl-name.md

@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ were not aware of them by the time our curl came to be.
 ### Pronunciation
 
 Most of us pronounce "curl" with an initial k sound, just like the English
-word curl.  It rhymes with words like girl and earl. Merriam Webster has a
+word curl. It rhymes with words like girl and earl. Merriam Webster has a
 [short WAV file](https://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/c/curl0001.wav) to
 help.