how.wtf

What is the curl command

· Thomas Taylor

Curl is a command line utility that was created in 1998 for transferring data using URLs. Fundamentally, curl allows users to create network requests to a server by specifying a location in the form of a URL and adding optional data.

curl (short for “Client URL”) is powered by libcurl – a portable client-side URL transfer library written in C.

Why use the curl command?

Common use cases for curl include:

Base curl command usage

The basic syntax for a curl command is:

1curl [OPTIONS] [URL]

Perform a GET request

The simplest usage is a default GET request for a website or API:

1curl https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/machine/1

Output:

1{"id":1,"item":{"name":"tm00","url":"https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/item/1288/"},"move":{"name":"mega-punch","url":"https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/move/5/"},"version_group":{"name":"sword-shield","url":"https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/version-group/20/"}}

Download a file

Downloading a file using the same name as the remote server:

1curl -O https://github.com/curl/curl/releases/download/curl-8_0_1/curl-8.0.1.tar.gz

Downloading a file and specifying a new name:

1curl -o curl.tar.gz https://github.com/curl/curl/releases/download/curl-8_0_1/curl-8.0.1.tar.gz

Conclusion

curl is a powerful and versatile command line utility that offers a wide range of supporting features: multiple protocols, multiple options, data types, etc.

#Linux  

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