Curl basic usage and examples

cUrl is a powerful tool for creating HTTP requests. If you need to make almost any HTTP request from console – use CURL! So, let’s see some curl’s keys:

Options:

-o {{ file }} # --output: write to file 
-u user:pass  # --user: Authentication 
-v            # --verbose 
-vv           # Even more verbose 
-I            # --head: headers only 

Request:

-X POST          # --request

Data:

-d 'data'    # --data: HTTP post data, URL encoded (eg, status="Hello") 
-d @file     # --data via file 
-G           # --get: send -d data via get 

Headers:

-A {{ str }}     # --user-agent 
-b name=val      # --cookie 
-b FILE          # --cookie 
-H "X-Foo: y"    # --header 
--compressed     # use deflate/gzip 

SSL:

--cacert {{ file }} 
--capath {{ dir }} 
-E, --cert {{ cert }} # --cert: Client cert file 
--cert-type           # der/pem/eng 
-k, --insecure        # for self-signed certs 

Examples

# Post data:
curl -d password=x http://x.com/y

# Auth/data:
curl -u user:pass -d status="Hello" 
    http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

# multipart file upload
curl -v -include --form key1=value1 
    --form upload=@localfilename {{ URL }}

# JSON-request via POST
curl -d '{"key1":"value1", "key2":"value2"}' 
    -H "Content-Type: application/json"
    -X POST {{ URL }}

It’s basic usage of cUrl. Use it, cUrl is cute!