CURL - Examples of CURL Use From Command Line

Examples of CURL Use From Command Line

Basic use of cURL involves simply typing curl at the command line, followed by the URL of the output to retrieve.

To retrieve the example.com homepage, type:

curl www.example.com

cURL defaults to displaying the output it retrieves to the standard output specified on the system (usually the terminal window). So running the command above would, on most systems, display the www.example.com source-code in the terminal window.

cURL can write the output it retrieves to a file with the -o flag, thus:

curl -o example.html www.example.com

This will store the source code for www.example.com into a file named example.html. While retrieving output, cURL will display a progress-bar showing how much of the output has downloaded. Note however that cURL does not show a progress bar when preparing to display the output in the terminal window, since a progress-bar is likely to interfere with the display of the output.

To download output to a file that has the same name as on the system it originates from, use the -O flag, for example:

curl -O www.example.com/example.html

If the server responds that the file (example.html) is moved to a different location (indicated with a Location: header and a 3XX response code), use the -L flag, for example:

curl -OL www.example.com/example.html

Curl offers a busload of useful tricks like proxy support, user authentication, FTP upload, HTTP post, SSL connections, cookies, file transfer resume, Metalink, and more.

Read more about this topic:  CURL

Famous quotes containing the words examples of, examples, curl, command and/or line:

    Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    There are many examples of women that have excelled in learning, and even in war, but this is no reason we should bring ‘em all up to Latin and Greek or else military discipline, instead of needle-work and housewifry.
    Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)

    An object among dreams, you sit here with your shoes off
    And curl your legs up under you;
    Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)

    The Modernist’s command was Pound’s “Make it New.” The postmodern imperative is “Get it Used.” The more used the better.
    Andrei Codrescu (b. 1946)

    Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.
    Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus, 44:14.

    The line “their name liveth for evermore” was chosen by Rudyard Kipling on behalf of the Imperial War Graves Commission as an epitaph to be used in Commonwealth War Cemeteries. Kipling had himself lost a son in the fighting.