HTTP responses are similar and contain the status code, some headers, and a body. “POST” requests typically contain some data in the request body, which the server can use. Typically, we use “GET” requests to retrieve a resource from the server, and “POST” to submit data to the server for processing. The most common types of request methods are “GET” and “POST”. The request method controls how a certain request should be processed. HTTP requests contain the request method, URL, some headers, and some optional data as part of the “request body”. To request a resource such as a webpage, or to submit some data to a server, a HTTP client (such as a browser or cURL) makes a HTTP request to the server The server responds back with a HTTP response, which contains the “contents” of that page. If you are familiar with these concepts, you directly skip to the other sections. Anatomy of a HTTP request/responseīefore we dig deeper into the features supported by cURL, we will discuss a little bit about HTTP requests and responses. For example, in the above command, you could combine -O -C - and write it as -OC - . Like most other command line tools, you can combine different options together.
If you have a partially downloaded file, you can resume the file download with the -C - option, as shown below: curl -O -C. So, if you want to save the above URL to the file vlc-3.0.4.dmg, you can simply use: curl -O īear in mind that when you use the -o or the -O options and a file of the same name exists, cURL will overwrite it. Instead of providing a file name manually, you can let cURL figure out the filename with the -O option. In addition to saving the contents, cURL switches to displaying a nice progress bar with download statistics, such as the speed and the time taken: In the next few sections, we will look into the various command line options accepted by cURL.Īs we saw, cURL directly downloads the URL content and prints it to the terminal. However, if you want to save the output as a file, you can specify a filename with the -o option, like so: curl -o vlc.dmg This is the most basic operation cURL can perform. For example, if you run curl, you should be able to see the HTML page printed, as shown below: This fetches the content available at the given URL, and prints it onto the terminal. The basic syntax of using cURL is simply: curl If everything went well, you should see the following output: C:\Users\Administrator>curlĬurl: try 'curl -help' or 'curl -manual' for more information cURL basic usage Once you complete the above steps, you can type curl to check if this is working. On older versions of Windows, you can type in C:\curl-7.62.0-win64-mingw\bin (notice the semicolon at the beginning) at the end of the “Value” text box.
For Windows 10, you can do this with the “New” button on the right.
Once you download the ZIP file and extract it, you will find a folder named curl-mingw. For older versions of Windows, the cURL project has Windows binaries.
Once you install Homebrew, you can install it with: brew install curlįor Windows 10 version 1803 and above, cURL now ships by default in the Command Prompt, so you can use it directly from there. However, in case you want to install the most recent version of cURL, you can install the curl Homebrew package. MacOS comes with cURL preinstalled, and it receives updates whenever Apple releases updates for the OS. On the other hand, for Fedora systems, you can use the command: sudo dnf install curl MacOS Use the commands below to install it on your system.įor Ubuntu/Debian based systems use: sudo apt updateįor CentOS/RHEL systems, use: sudo yum install curl If it isn’t installed, it will show a “command not found” error. To check whether it is installed on your system or not, type curl in your terminal window and press enter. Most Linux distributions have cURL installed by default. 20 Troubleshooting website issues with “cURL timing breakdown”.18 Resolve domains to IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.17 Setting the Host header and cURL’s -resolve option.15 Making authenticated requests with cURL.13 Replicating browser requests with cURL.9 Setting HTTP request headers with cURL.7 Viewing request headers and connection details.