7 ms·

If you regularly do command line JSON requests, I'm a big fan of HTTPie. It's so much easier to use correctly. https://httpie.io/docs/cli/examples https://httpi

• db65edfc7996 5y ago
  I have recently been trying a port of HTTPie in Rust, xh [0] (which is needlessly hard to find in a websearch). I am a Python guy, but love having single executable tools. [0] https://github.com/ducaale/xh https://github.com/ducaale/xh
  • petepete 5y ago
    xh is great, just like HTTPie but incredibly fast. I alias it to http so it's memorable and the commands make more sense though.
  • kbd 5y ago
    Happy to hear about xh, thanks for mentioning it. I recently ran into a problem where HTTPie didn't support HTTP/2, so I had to fall back to curl. The ticket for HTTP/2 in HTTPie is still open https://github.com/httpie/httpie/issues/692 https://github.com/httpie/httpie/issues/692 Happy to see that xh supports HTTP/2 out of the box.
• mimimi31 5y ago
  I think --data implies -X POST, so that part at least would be unnecessary.
  • CobrastanJorji 5y ago
    Ahh, I believe you're right. "PUT" would have been a better example, in that case. But I suppose getting the cURL syntax wrong helps my point that I find the cURL syntax confusing.
• parhamn 5y ago
  After this change the equivalent would be: curl -XPOST --jp username=YOUR.USERNAME password=YOUR.PASSWORD https://api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login Which isn't too far from your desired outcome (notably, without relying on argument position for meaning). Although, I guess the argument that "curl is already installed on almost every server", sorta gets moot because I imagine it will take a while for most distros to move to the latest curl that will support --json/--jp
  • jedberg 5y ago
    It's a lot easier for a distro to update a default utility than to add a new one though. I suspect having updated curl would happen faster than adding httpie to the list of default utilities.
    • derefr 5y ago
      Especially singe HTTPie is a python package. curl exists even in plenty of embedded systems, in many Docker base-images, etc.; but scripting runtimes like Python generally don't.
    • thwarted 5y ago
      The exact opposite is more likely true, depending on the nature of the change. A new utility has no current usage so there are no in-the-wild backwards compatibility concerns. The system python on redhat based distros was stuck at 2 for a long time because some of the sysadmin utilities relied on it and all those deps needs to be vetted or converted to either a newer python version or their own shipped version of the runtime that didn't use the general purpose python install.
      • _ea1k 5y ago
        There's a big difference between a bump to the latest curl version and a jump between two major versions of a language runtime. The Python 2->3 transition took years and many distros kept both versions. Most dependencies get updated much more quickly. It wouldn't even shock me if this change got picked up mid-cycle.
• lambdaba 5y ago
  Since htttpie can't do nested JSON assignments I like to use jo, like this: $ jo foo=$(jo bar=qux) | http example.com Piped JSON automatically uses POST
  • CGamesPlay 5y ago
    This is amazing! Definitely adding to my toolbox.
  • treesciencebot 5y ago
    (HTTPie maintainer here) You might be in luck since Nested JSON support is going to be star feature of our upcoming release. Here is a sneak peek: $ http --offline --print=B pie.dev/post \ search[type]=client \ search[stars]:=50000 \ search[platforms][]=Web \ search[platforms][]=Desktop \ search[platforms][]=Mobile \ search[platforms][]=CLI { "search": { "platforms": [ "Web", "Desktop", "Mobile", "CLI" ], "stars": 50000, "type": "client" } } We are rolling a brand-new mini-language that integrates really well with the existing request building syntax, but also features stuff like JSON type-safety and amazing error messages for basic syntax errors.
    • CobrastanJorji 5y ago
      That sounds great! Any chance of HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 support?
      • treesciencebot 5y ago
        It will probably be post 3.0, since the underlying HTTP interface we use (https://pypi.org/project/requests https://pypi.org/project/requests) does not support HTTP/2. We are currently discussing how to migrate from that to something like httpx, without causing any change of user-visible behavior.
• jicea 5y ago
  Shameless plug, we've built hurl [1] to add some syntactic sugar over curl, with plain text. For example, you can write a text file post.hurl: POST https://api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login { "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" } and it will send the same POST request with a json body: hurl post.hurl You can add asserts on the response too: POST https://api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login { "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" } HTTP/1.0 200 [Asserts] jsonpath "$.status" == "LOGGED" Under the hood, we use libcurl and a Rust binding. The HTTP engine is curl because curl is awesome! [1] https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl
  • na85 5y ago
    >hurl Awesome name.
    • tinselcity 5y ago
      It is a good name! https://github.com/EdgeCast/hurl https://github.com/EdgeCast/hurl
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • e12e 5y ago
    Hurl probably has many fine uses - but note that curl reads json from file just fine: curl -d @post.json http://example.com
• Jaepa 5y ago
  curl's primary advantage is that its pretty much universal. I can hand another dev a curl statement without having to worry if they have the requisite software to reproduce the call. Also Postman, Insomnia, Sentry, & Swagger all support ability export to curl.
• darrenf 5y ago
  For longer than I can recall I've had a `post_json` alias like this: curl -H'Content-Type: application/json' -d @- << 'JSON' Invoke with post_json <url> Then just paste or write JSON without caring about quotes etc, finish the heredoc, done.
  • tomsmeding 5y ago
    Don't you need `<<'JSON'` instead of `<<JSON`? Otherwise any $ in the json body would be interpreted as a shell variable reference.
    • darrenf 5y ago
      Yes, I mistyped on my phone. Edited, thanks!
  • paledot 5y ago
    TIL you could open (and not close) a heredoc string in an alias.
• adolph 5y ago
  This example isn't fair/steelmanning cURL. -s: if HTTPie disables progress bar by default, that's just a different design choice, the advantage is in the eye of the beholder --data '{"user...: likewise, HTTPie's default to JSON is a design choice. I wouldn't say the default is superior -H "Content-Type...: likewise, if HTTPie adds this header by default, thats just getting in my way when I don't want that header -X POST: you don't need to specify that in cURL if using --data
• Diti 5y ago
  HTTPie does not support multi-valued keys in query strings (sending several field[]= for example). It is very annoying and, for consistency, I would rather use cURL (instead of mixing syntax with HTTPie).
  • jkbr 5y ago
    If I’m understanding your point correctly, HTTPie has support for multi-value keys in query strings. You can use the `name==value` query parameter syntax [0]: $ http --offline pie.dev/get AAA==AAA AAA==BBB GET /get?AAA=AAA&AAA=BBB HTTP/1.1 Or simply: $ http --offline 'pie.dev/get?AAA=AAA&AAA=BBB' GET /get?AAA=AAA&AAA=BBB HTTP/1.1 [0]https://httpie.io/docs/cli/querystring-parameters https://httpie.io/docs/cli/querystring-parameters
• mmcnl 5y ago
  I appreciate HTTPie but it can never beat the fact that you curl is almost always installed by default.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  There is a different way, without curl or other curl-like programs, without Python, Go, etc. It is smaller and faster, IME as a non-developer. post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login < 1.txt|openssl s_client -connect api.ctl.io:443 -ign_eof post is a 702-character shell script. printf is a built-in. #!/bin/sh ( y=Connection;n=0;while read x;do x1=${1#*//};x2=${x1%%/*};x3=${x1#*/}; x=$(printf "%s" "${x%%:*}:";echo "${x#*:}"); if test x"${x3}" = x"${x2}";then x3="";fi; printf "%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n" \ "POST /${x3} HTTP/1.1" \ "Host: ${x2}" \ "Content-Type: application/json" \ "Content-Length: ${#x}"; if [ $n -gt 1 ];then printf "%s\r\n\r\n%s\r\n" "$y: keep-alive" "$x";else printf "%s\r\n\r\n%s\r\n" "$y: close" "$x";fi; export n=$((n+1)); done; if [ $n -gt 1 ];then printf "%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n" \ "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" \ "Host: ${x2}" \ "$y: close";fi; ) Data to be posted may be stored in a one-line file named "1.txt" cat > 1.txt { "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" } ^D Examine the request post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login < 1.txt POST the request post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login < 1.txt|nc -vvn 127.1 80 Alternatively, data to be posted can be read from stdin echo '{ "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" }' \ |post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login \ |nc -vvn 127.1 80 If the data to be posted is JSON formatted as multiple lines such as { "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" } then something like (tr -d '\12' < 1.txt;echo) \ |post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login \ |nc -vvn 127.1 80 For TLS we use proxy listening on 127.0.0.1, e.g., stunnel, sslsplit, haproxy, etc. This way we only ever have to type a single address and port, i.e., 127.1 80, or short alias for the hostname, e.g., echo 127.0.0.1 p >> /etc/hosts. cat > 1.cfg pid=/tmp/1.pid [ x ] accept=127.0.0.1:80 client=yes connect=64.15.182.200:443 options=NO_TICKET options=NO_RENEGOTIATION renegotiation=no sni= sslVersion=TLSv1.3 ^D stunnel 1.cfg
  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    Apologies for unintentional duplicate. Happens sometimes when I forget to change default cache settings in text-only browser.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  There is a different way, without curl or other curl-like programs, without Python, Go, or the like. It is smaller and faster, IME as a non-developer. post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login < 1.txt|openssl s_client -connect api.ctl.io:443 post is a 702-character shell script. printf is a built-in. #!/bin/sh ( y=Connection;n=0;while read x;do x1=${1#*//};x2=${x1%%/*};x3=${x1#*/}; x=$(printf "%s" "${x%%:*}:";echo "${x#*:}"); if test x"${x3}" = x"${x2}";then x3="";fi; printf "%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n" \ "POST /${x3} HTTP/1.1" \ "Host: ${x2}" \ "Content-Type: application/json" \ "Content-Length: ${#x}"; if [ $n -gt 1 ];then printf "%s\r\n\r\n%s\r\n" "$y: keep-alive" "$x";else printf "%s\r\n\r\n%s\r\n" "$y: close" "$x";fi; export n=$((n+1)); done; if [ $n -gt 1 ];then printf "%s\r\n%s\r\n%s\r\n" \ "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" \ "Host: ${x2}" \ "$y: close";fi; ) Data to be posted may be stored in a one-line file named "1.txt" cat > 1.txt { "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" } ^D Examine the request post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login < 1.txt POST the request post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login < 1.txt|nc -vvn 127.1 80 Alternatively, data to be posted can be read from stdin echo '{ "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" }' \ |post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login \ |nc -vvn 127.1 80 If the data to be posed is JSON formatted as multiple lines such as { "username": "YOUR.USERNAME", "password": "YOUR.PASSWORD" } then (tr -d '\12' < 1.txt;echo) \ |post api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login \ |nc -vvn 127.1 80 For TLS we use proxy listening on 127.0.0.1, e.g., stunnel, sslsplit, haproxy, etc. cat > 1.cfg pid=/tmp/1.pid [ x ] accept=127.0.0.1:80 client=yes connect=64.15.182.200:443 options=NO_TICKET options=NO_RENEGOTIATION renegotiation=no sni= sslVersion=TLSv1.3 ^D stunnel 1.cfg
• aembleton 5y ago
  HTTPie can be even more compact by using the command https to indicate to use that protocol. This makes the command look like: https POST api.ctl.io/v2/authentication/login username=YOUR.USERNAME password=YOUR.PASSWORD