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Curl User Poll

78 points by akerl_ 12y ago

onion2k 12y ago
Shame you can't complete the survey using a cURL request.
- ChrisArgyle 12y ago
  The Google machine disagrees https://journalxtra.com/linux/bash-linuxsanity/bash-filling-web-forms-with-curl-and-wget/ https://journalxtra.com/linux/bash-linuxsanity/bash-filling-... TL;DR cURL can fill out forms using the "-d" option. http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html#-d http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html#-d
  - onion2k 12y ago
    Google, very sensibly from a web security point of view, have a hidden nonce field in their surveys that you'd need to parse out of a prior request in order to submit the form. That means you can't use 'pure' cURL. formfind might well work to grab the value you'd need to send though.
    - smorrow 12y ago
      Pipe/heredoc to edbrowse will handle that, too.
falcolas 12y ago
Can do a lot more with Curl than I imagined. Unfortunately for me, when it comes to those kinds of uses, I'm rarely still in Bash, and I've already started using Python or Go's HTTP libraries.
- paulhauggis 12y ago
  Python also has a curl library.
  - laumars 12y ago
    Go has a few curl packages too: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=go+lang+libcurl https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=go+lang+libcurl
  - falcolas 12y ago
    Sure, but I have personally never found need to use it instead of the stdlib http2.
lucaspiller 12y ago
"Please check the protocols you use curl/libcurl for" I had no idea Curl could be used for protocols other than HTTP/HTTPS.
- lloeki 12y ago
  FTP I did knew, but oh that list just took me by surprise. Suddenly I'll be using curl even more.
- super_mario 12y ago
  $ curl --version curl 7.40.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0) libcurl/7.40.0 SecureTransport zlib/1.2.7 libidn/1.28 libssh2/1.4.3 Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp scp sftp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp Features: AsynchDNS IDN IPv6 Largefile GSS-API Kerberos SPNEGO NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz UnixSockets Metalink $
- agwa 12y ago
  Indeed, and they have been a source of some nasty security vulnerabilities in the past. If you're using libcurl, it's a very good idea to restrict redirects to HTTP and HTTPS only (with CURLOPT_REDIR_PROTOCOLS), lest a malicious site redirect you to an imap or smtp URL.
- 616c 12y ago
  I was wondering if you could write a whole email client in bash using just curl/libcurl somehow, but I do not have enough foo for it. One day, one day.
shadeless 12y ago
I listened to an episode of Changelog last night which featured curl creator, Daniel Stenberg, as a guest: https://changelog.com/153/ https://changelog.com/153/ It's worth listening if you're at all interested in curl or popular open source projects in general.
- kirb 12y ago
  He also does weekly videos discussing curl, HTTP/2, stuff at Mozilla, etc; worth a subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/danielhaxxse https://www.youtube.com/user/danielhaxxse
samspot 12y ago
Survey is down, so I'll just post. I use curl primarily for testing web service apis. It's also pretty awesome that chrome and other devtools can 'copy request as curl'.
- jamiesonbecker 12y ago
  The survey is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uQNYfTmRwF9RX5-oq_HV4VyeT1j7cxXpuBIp8uy5nqQ/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uQNYfTmRwF9RX5-oq_HV4VyeT1j...
- rspeer 12y ago
  Being a similar user of curl, I found I had to skip a lot of questions. The survey calls itself a "curl user poll" but most of the questions seem to be written as a "curl developer poll". It's actually pretty hard to convey what I think is the majority position of curl users: I use it, I'm glad it exists, and I never think about the code it contains.
protomyth 12y ago
http://curl.haxx.se/donation.html http://curl.haxx.se/donation.html might not be a bad place to visit
nothrabannosir 12y ago
Too bad the "worst areas" list didn't include the UI. I cannot recall the number of times I've spent looking through the docs, which flag was it again? -s? -S? -q? Every. Single. Time. But it's a minor annoyance. Great great tool.
- laumars 12y ago
  I personally think curl is one of the better examples of CLI tools as it follows the pipe metaphor by default (which wget doesn't), supports both long and short flags (so if -s isn't memorable, then use --silent) and doesn't require a flag for it's core mandatory input (ie a URL). You can even slide flags in after the URL, if you wanted - which is something you generally only see supported by GNU utilities. I could see curl being a little daunting to someone who is normally uncomfortable with the command line, but that's not really the fault of curl having a bad UI, that's more a paradigm preference of the user.
  - matt-attack 12y ago
    > it follows the pipe metaphor by default Completely agree. As a novice 15 years ago, this bugged me, especially coming from arguably simpler tools like wget. But over the years I can to appreciate how it works. And now, wget seems kinda dirty.
  - nothrabannosir 12y ago
    as it turns out (just had to look it up again, incidentally!) the correct form when piping it to an output tool is -s -S. E.g.: $ curl -s -S http://example.com/some.json | python -m json.tool I want errors, but I don't want that annoying status bar to mess up the output. I don't use curl often enough to even remember I need two flags at all (e.g. I remember now, but didn't know when I wrote the original comment). It can follow any philosophy it wants: when a user is consistently confused, I personally consider it bad UI. EDIT: This is not the only bad / confusing default. Another popular one is -L. Not following redirects should be the exception; I almost never want curl to choke on 3xx. Result, I could practically alias curl="curl -L". Great software, but the UI is unfortunate.

Curl User Poll

78 points by akerl_ 12y ago

onion2k 12y ago

Shame you can't complete the survey using a cURL request.

ChrisArgyle 12y ago
The Google machine disagrees https://journalxtra.com/linux/bash-linuxsanity/bash-filling-web-forms-with-curl-and-wget/ https://journalxtra.com/linux/bash-linuxsanity/bash-filling-... TL;DR cURL can fill out forms using the "-d" option. http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html#-d http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html#-d
- onion2k 12y ago
  Google, very sensibly from a web security point of view, have a hidden nonce field in their surveys that you'd need to parse out of a prior request in order to submit the form. That means you can't use 'pure' cURL. formfind might well work to grab the value you'd need to send though.
  - smorrow 12y ago
    Pipe/heredoc to edbrowse will handle that, too.

falcolas 12y ago

Can do a lot more with Curl than I imagined. Unfortunately for me, when it comes to those kinds of uses, I'm rarely still in Bash, and I've already started using Python or Go's HTTP libraries.

paulhauggis 12y ago
Python also has a curl library.
- laumars 12y ago
  Go has a few curl packages too: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=go+lang+libcurl https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=go+lang+libcurl
- falcolas 12y ago
  Sure, but I have personally never found need to use it instead of the stdlib http2.

lucaspiller 12y ago

"Please check the protocols you use curl/libcurl for" I had no idea Curl could be used for protocols other than HTTP/HTTPS.

lloeki 12y ago
FTP I did knew, but oh that list just took me by surprise. Suddenly I'll be using curl even more.
super_mario 12y ago
$ curl --version curl 7.40.0 (x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0) libcurl/7.40.0 SecureTransport zlib/1.2.7 libidn/1.28 libssh2/1.4.3 Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp scp sftp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp Features: AsynchDNS IDN IPv6 Largefile GSS-API Kerberos SPNEGO NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz UnixSockets Metalink $
agwa 12y ago
Indeed, and they have been a source of some nasty security vulnerabilities in the past. If you're using libcurl, it's a very good idea to restrict redirects to HTTP and HTTPS only (with CURLOPT_REDIR_PROTOCOLS), lest a malicious site redirect you to an imap or smtp URL.
616c 12y ago
I was wondering if you could write a whole email client in bash using just curl/libcurl somehow, but I do not have enough foo for it. One day, one day.

shadeless 12y ago

I listened to an episode of Changelog last night which featured curl creator, Daniel Stenberg, as a guest: https://changelog.com/153/ https://changelog.com/153/ It's worth listening if you're at all interested in curl or popular open source projects in general.

kirb 12y ago
He also does weekly videos discussing curl, HTTP/2, stuff at Mozilla, etc; worth a subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/danielhaxxse https://www.youtube.com/user/danielhaxxse

samspot 12y ago

Survey is down, so I'll just post. I use curl primarily for testing web service apis. It's also pretty awesome that chrome and other devtools can 'copy request as curl'.

jamiesonbecker 12y ago
The survey is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uQNYfTmRwF9RX5-oq_HV4VyeT1j7cxXpuBIp8uy5nqQ/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uQNYfTmRwF9RX5-oq_HV4VyeT1j...
rspeer 12y ago
Being a similar user of curl, I found I had to skip a lot of questions. The survey calls itself a "curl user poll" but most of the questions seem to be written as a "curl developer poll". It's actually pretty hard to convey what I think is the majority position of curl users: I use it, I'm glad it exists, and I never think about the code it contains.

protomyth 12y ago

http://curl.haxx.se/donation.html http://curl.haxx.se/donation.html might not be a bad place to visit

nothrabannosir 12y ago

Too bad the "worst areas" list didn't include the UI. I cannot recall the number of times I've spent looking through the docs, which flag was it again? -s? -S? -q? Every. Single. Time. But it's a minor annoyance. Great great tool.

laumars 12y ago
I personally think curl is one of the better examples of CLI tools as it follows the pipe metaphor by default (which wget doesn't), supports both long and short flags (so if -s isn't memorable, then use --silent) and doesn't require a flag for it's core mandatory input (ie a URL). You can even slide flags in after the URL, if you wanted - which is something you generally only see supported by GNU utilities. I could see curl being a little daunting to someone who is normally uncomfortable with the command line, but that's not really the fault of curl having a bad UI, that's more a paradigm preference of the user.
- matt-attack 12y ago
  > it follows the pipe metaphor by default Completely agree. As a novice 15 years ago, this bugged me, especially coming from arguably simpler tools like wget. But over the years I can to appreciate how it works. And now, wget seems kinda dirty.
- nothrabannosir 12y ago
  as it turns out (just had to look it up again, incidentally!) the correct form when piping it to an output tool is -s -S. E.g.: $ curl -s -S http://example.com/some.json | python -m json.tool I want errors, but I don't want that annoying status bar to mess up the output. I don't use curl often enough to even remember I need two flags at all (e.g. I remember now, but didn't know when I wrote the original comment). It can follow any philosophy it wants: when a user is consistently confused, I personally consider it bad UI. EDIT: This is not the only bad / confusing default. Another popular one is -L. Not following redirects should be the exception; I almost never want curl to choke on 3xx. Result, I could practically alias curl="curl -L". Great software, but the UI is unfortunate.