Curl Command Mac
curl intro and installation | Documenting APIs
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Using an API like a developer
Last updated: Jan 01, 2019
While Postman is convenient, it’s hard to use it to represent how to make calls with it in your documentation. Additionally, different users probably use different GUI clients, or none at all (preferring the command line instead).
Instead of describing how to make REST calls using a GUI client like Postman, the most conventional method for documenting request syntax is to use curl.
About curl
Installing curl
Install curl on Mac
Install curl on Windows
Make a test API call
Notes about using curl with Windows
curl is a command-line utility that lets you execute HTTP requests with different parameters and methods. Instead of going to web resources in a browser’s address bar, you can use the command line to get these same resources, retrieved as text.
Sometimes curl is written as cURL. It stands for Client URL. “curl” is the more common convention for its spelling, but both refer to the same thing.
curl is usually available by default on Macs but requires some installation on Windows. Follow these instructions for installing curl:
If you have a Mac, by default, curl is probably already installed. To check:
Open Terminal (press Cmd + spacebar to open Stoplight, and then type “Terminal”).
In Terminal type curl -V. The response should look something like this:
curl 7. 54. 0 (x86_64-apple-darwin16. 0) libcurl/7. 0 SecureTransport zlib/1. 2. 8
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp Features: AsynchDNS IPv6 Largefile GSS-API Kerberos SPNEGO NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz UnixSockets
If you don’t see this, you need to download and install curl.
Installing curl on Windows involves a few more steps. First, determine whether you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows by right-clicking Computer and selecting Properties. Then follow the instructions in this Confused by Code page. Most likely, you’ll want to choose the With Administrator Privileges (free) installer.
After you install curl, test your version of curl by doing the following:
Open a command prompt by clicking the Start button and typing cmd.
Type curl -V.
The response should be as follows:
curl 7. 0 (x86_64-apple-darwin14. 37. 1 SecureTransport zlib/1. 5
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: AsynchDNS GSS-Negotiate IPv6 Largefile NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz
After you have curl installed, make a test API call:
curl -X GET ”
(In the above code, replace APIKEY with your actual API key. )
You should get minified JSON response back like this:
{“coord”:{“lon”:-121. 96, “lat”:37. 35}, “weather”:[{“id”:701, “main”:”Mist”, “description”:”mist”, “icon”:”50d”}], “base”:”stations”, “main”:{“temp”:66. 92, “pressure”:1017, “humidity”:50, “temp_min”:53. 6, “temp_max”:75. 2}, “visibility”:16093, “wind”:{“speed”:10. 29, “deg”:300}, “clouds”:{“all”:75}, “dt”:1522526400, “sys”:{“type”:1, “id”:479, “message”:0. 0051, “country”:”US”, “sunrise”:1522504404, “sunset”:1522549829}, “id”:420006397, “name”:”Santa Clara”, “cod”:200}
In Windows, Ctrl+ V doesn’t work; instead, you right-click and then select Paste.
If you’re using Windows, note the following formatting requirements when using curl:
Use double quotes in the Windows command line. (Windows doesn’t support single quotes. )
Don’t use backslashes (\) to separate lines. (This is for readability only and doesn’t affect the call on Macs. )
By adding -k in the curl command, you can bypass curl’s security certificate, which may or may not be necessary.
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1.4. cURL: Your Command Line Friend – CouchDB docs
Apache CouchDB®
The curl utility is a command line tool available on Unix, Linux, Mac OS X,
Windows, and many other platforms. curl provides easy access to the HTTP
protocol (among others) directly from the command line and is therefore an
ideal way of interacting with CouchDB over the HTTP REST API.
For simple GET requests you can supply the URL of the request. For example,
to get the database information:
shell> curl admin:password@127. 0. 1:5984
This returns the database information (formatted in the output below for
clarity):
{
“couchdb”: “Welcome”,
“version”: “3. 0”,
“git_sha”: “83bdcf693”,
“uuid”: “56f16e7c93ff4a2dc20eb6acc7000b71”,
“features”: [
“access-ready”,
“partitioned”,
“pluggable-storage-engines”,
“reshard”,
“scheduler”],
“vendor”: {
“name”: “The Apache Software Foundation”}}
Note
For some URLs, especially those that include special characters such as
ampersand, exclamation mark, or question mark, you should quote the URL you
are specifying on the command line. For example:
shell> curl ‘couchdb:5984/_uuids? count=5’
On Microsoft Windows, use double-quotes anywhere you see single-quotes in
the following examples. Use doubled double-quotes (“”) anywhere you see
single double-quotes. For example, if you see:
shell> curl -X PUT ‘:/127. 1:5984/demo/doc’ -d ‘{“motto”: “I love gnomes”}’
you should replace it with:
shell> curl -X PUT ” -d “{“”motto””: “”I love gnomes””}”
If you prefer, ^” and \” may be used to escape the double-quote
