doc/curl.md

Curl useful commands

This is a cheatsheet taken from the how to curl better.

Simplest way to GET data

$ curl example.com

Show response header

$ curl -i https://example.com

GET json and show it nicely

$ curl https://example.com/json | jq

HEAD only shows the response headers

$ curl -I https://example.com

Please follow redirects

$ curl -I -L https://example.com/redirected

URL Globbing

$ curl https://example.com/[1-9].html

$ curl https://example.com/[01-99].html

$ curl https://example.com/[a-z].html

Provide a step when globbing

$ curl https://example.com/[1-9:2].html

$ curl https://example.com/[a-z:3].html

Save the matching files to output with #1 -> [1-9] parameter

$ curl https://example.com/[1-9].html -o save_#1.html

Comma separated strings

$ curl https://example.com/{ham,cheese,pineapple}.jpg -o hawaii_#1.jpg

Combine everything in one line

$ curl https://example.com/issue[1996-1999]/vol[1-4]/part{a,b,c}.html

Verbose shows more from under the hood

$ curl -v https://example.com/ -o /dev/null

Pass in custom headers

$ curl https://example.com/ -H "User-Agent: Some Silly Agent"
$ curl https://example.com/ -H "Magic: disc0"
$ curl https://example.com/ -H "User-Agent:"
$ curl https://example.com/ -H "User-Agent;"

Methods

POST some basic data to the remote

$ curl -d name=Daniel -i https://example.com/receiver

POST a file

$ curl -d @file https://example.com/receiver -o saved
# Post a standard input
$ ls -l | curl -d @- https://example.com/receiver -o saved
# Post as binaries
$ ls -l | curl --data-binary @- https://example.com/receiver
# Post json as binary
$ curl --data-binary @file.json -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://example.com

PUT a file

$ curl -T localfile -i https://example.com/remote_name

Change the method string

# Use -X if you want a different menthod than curl would use
curl -T localfile -X SWOOSH https://example.com/remote_name -o save

Cookies

Save cookies from site

$ curl -c cookiejar.txt https://example.com/

Send cookies to the server

$ curl -b cookiejar.txt https://example.com/

Cookies in a login

$ curl -b cookiejar.txt -c cookiejar.txt https://example.com/login -d user=daniel -d password=1234
# Request data as a logged in user
$ curl -b cookiejar.txt -c cookiejar.txt https://example.com/profile