How to send HTTP requests using cURL

Updated . Posted . Visible to the public. Repeats.
  • Reading a URL via GET:

    curl http://example.com/
    
  • Defining any HTTP method (like POST or PUT):

    curl http://example.com/users/1 -XPUT
    
  • Sending data with a request:

    curl http://example.com/users -d"first_name=Bruce&last_name=Wayne"
    

    If you use -d and do not set an HTTP request method it automatically defaults to POST.

  • Performing basic authentication:

    curl http://user:password@example.com/users/1
    
  • All together now:

    curl http://user:password@example.com/users/1 -XPUT -d"screen_name=batman"
    

Check the man page Show archive.org snapshot for more features.

Read more

  • You can also use Cookies with cURL.
  • If you are looking for curl-like functionality for an IRB or Rails console, take a look at the rest-client Show archive.org snapshot gem.
  • If you prefer having a GUI, take a look at the Chrome extension Postman Show archive.org snapshot .
  • In the Network tab of Chrome Dev tools you can right-click a request and choose Copy / Copy as cURL. This copies an cURL CLI line into your clipboard that corresponds to the request.
Arne Hartherz
Last edit
Henning Koch
Keywords
linux, unix
License
Source code in this card is licensed under the MIT License.
Posted by Arne Hartherz to makandra dev (2011-04-08 07:30)