What is the CURL command?
CURL (Client URL) is a command-line tool for transferring data specified by a URL. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, and other protocols. CURL is a very versatile tool that can be used for a variety of tasks, including:
- Downloading files from the web
- Uploading files to the web
- Posting data to web servers
- Making HTTP requests to web APIs
- Testing web servers
Example:
To download the Google homepage, you would type the following command:
curl https://www.google.com/
This will download the HTML code for the Google homepage to your terminal.
How to use the CURL command:
To use CURL, you simply type the command followed by the URL of the resource you want to access. You can also use various options to modify the behavior of the CURL command. For example, you can use the -o
option to save the response to a file, or the -d
option to post data to a web server.
Here are some additional curl examples:
# Get the HTTP headers for a URL
curl -I https://www.google.com/
# Follow redirects
curl -L https://example.com/redirect
# Set a custom user agent
curl -H "User-Agent: MyCustomUserAgent" https://www.example.com/
# Save the response to a file
curl -o output.html https://www.google.com/
Why use the CURL command?
There are many reasons to use the CURL command. It is a very powerful and versatile tool that can be used for a variety of tasks. CURL is also very efficient and can be used to transfer large amounts of data quickly.
Some of the benefits of using the CURL command include:
- It can be used to transfer data over a variety of protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and SFTP.
- It is very powerful and versatile, and can be used for a wide range of tasks.
- It is very efficient and can be used to transfer large amounts of data quickly.
- It is a free and open source tool, so it is available to everyone.
The CURL command is a powerful and versatile tool that can be used for a variety of tasks. It is especially useful for automating tasks that require interacting with web servers. If you are looking for a command-line tool for transferring data, I highly recommend CURL.
Learn more about Unix here