What is curl, and how does it work?
- The command line program curl is used to transfer data. For the location to which a request is sent, followed by the data to be sent, Curl employs URLs
- The web utilizes curl extensively, and it is quite portable. It supports a wide range of protocols, including HTTPS, FTP, SMPT, POP3, and more, and is compatible with practically every operating system.
- Curl is excellent for testing endpoints when it comes to APIs.
- In its simplest form, a curl request looks like this: [URL] curl
- Curl requests that just contain a URL are by default transmitted as GET requests. As a result, the aforementioned example would return the HTML source for the given URL.
- There are more than 200 curl commands available. The majority use the curl [option] [URL] basic format. To view a list of all the curl commands available, type “curl -help” or just “-h” in your command line.
- Curl can be used to transmit all the standard HTTP method requests, including GET, POST, DELETE, etc., and for authentication. The -X option is used to accomplish this. For instance, the syntax of a POST request is as follows: [URL] curl -X POST
Other commonly used options are,
- -I: The Content-Type, Date, and other HTTP header fields are returned by this command.
- -v: The ‘verbose’ command, which returns data to tell you everything that happened when you ran the curl request, including connection info and headers.
- -o: This option directs the returned data to the given file rather than standard output.
- -H: Increases a request’s HTTP Header count. Curl -H ‘[Header name: value]’, for example, is followed by the header name and value. [URL]
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