I have a server application written in ASP.NET on Windows that provides a web service.
How can I call the web service in Linux with cURL?
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2For building a curl command quickly I'm using this online tool: https://curlbuilder.com/ – Micer May 17 '20 at 15:12
2 Answers
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*nix provides a nice little command which makes our lives a lot easier.
GET:
with JSON:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://hostname/resource
with XML:
curl -H "Accept: application/xml" -H "Content-Type: application/xml" -X GET http://hostname/resource
POST:
For posting data:
curl --data "param1=value1¶m2=value2" http://hostname/resource
For file upload:
curl --form "fileupload=@filename.txt" http://hostname/resource
RESTful HTTP Post:
curl -X POST -d @filename http://hostname/resource
For logging into a site (auth):
curl -d "username=admin&password=admin&submit=Login" --dump-header headers http://localhost/Login
curl -L -b headers http://localhost/
Pretty-printing the curl results:
For JSON:
If you use npm and nodejs, you can install json package by running this command:
npm install -g json
Usage:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://hostname/resource | json
If you use pip and python, you can install pjson package by running this command:
pip install pjson
Usage:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://hostname/resource | pjson
If you use Python 2.6+, json tool is bundled within.
Usage:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://hostname/resource | python -m json.tool
If you use gem and ruby, you can install colorful_json package by running this command:
gem install colorful_json
Usage:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://hostname/resource | cjson
If you use apt-get (aptitude package manager of your Linux distro), you can install yajl-tools package by running this command:
sudo apt-get install yajl-tools
Usage:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X GET http://hostname/resource | json_reformat
For XML:
If you use *nix with Debian/Gnome envrionment, install libxml2-utils:
sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils
Usage:
curl -H "Accept: application/xml" -H "Content-Type: application/xml" -X GET http://hostname/resource | xmllint --format -
or install tidy:
sudo apt-get install tidy
Usage:
curl -H "Accept: application/xml" -H "Content-Type: application/xml" -X GET http://hostname/resource | tidy -xml -i -
Saving the curl response to a file
curl http://hostname/resource >> /path/to/your/file
or
curl http://hostname/resource -o /path/to/your/file
For detailed description of the curl command, hit:
man curl
For details about options/switches of the curl command, hit:
curl -h
Amith Koujalgi
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1If you're redirecting to `less`, you might need to [add `-sS`](http://stackoverflow.com/a/21109454/52499). – x-yuri Dec 25 '14 at 02:47
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@emoleumassi see x-yuri's comment before yours; you should be able to pipe the return into another command, such as `less`. – AVProgrammer Jul 21 '16 at 14:25
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1Potentially better than the grep approach below is to pipe the results to [jq](https://stedolan.github.io/jq/). – grant Jan 25 '17 at 22:43
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6On the `get` example, you may quote the whole url to avoid errors on params, e.g. `curl "http://www.virustotal.com/vtapi/v2/ip-address/report?ip=8.8.8.8&apikey=1233456890"` – Ricardo Jun 26 '17 at 22:44
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Guys can you look into this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47526927/how-to-test-curl-commands-which-are-in-seaprate-file-and-get-the-count-of-execut – srinivas gowda Nov 29 '17 at 09:19
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I think Amith Koujalgi is correct but also, in cases where the webservice responses are in JSON then it might be more useful to see the results in a clean JSON format instead of a very long string. Just add | grep }| python -mjson.tool to the end of curl commands here is two examples:
GET approach with JSON result
curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" http://someHostName/someEndpoint | grep }| python -mjson.tool
POST approach with JSON result
curl -X POST -H "Accept: Application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://someHostName/someEndpoint -d '{"id":"IDVALUE","name":"Mike"}' | grep }| python -mjson.tool
grepit
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3What is grep supposed to be doing here? I use the following with the same result: `curl -s -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "http://${API_BASE_URL}${1}" | python -mjson.tool` – AVProgrammer Jul 21 '16 at 14:14