How to test web service using command line curl

Question

I am building a web service for a web application  and I would like a simple tool to test this as I am developing  I have tried some firefox plug-ins  Poster   REST Client    and even though these work fine I have been unable to upload files with them   Also  I would rather have a command-line tool that I can use to easily write a set of integration tests for this web service and that I can send to consumers of this web service as an example   I know that curl can work for this but would like a few examples  especially around authentication  using HTTP Basic  and file uploads

User · Accepted Answer

In addition to existing answers it is often desired to format the REST output (typically JSON and XML lacks indentation). Try this:

$ curl https://api.twitter.com/1/help/configuration.xml  | xmllint --format -
$ curl https://api.twitter.com/1/help/configuration.json | python -mjson.tool

Tested on Ubuntu 11.0.4/11.10.

Another issue is the desired content type. Twitter uses .xml/.json extension, but more idiomatic REST would require Accept header:

$ curl -H "Accept: application/json"

User · Answer

From the documentation on http   curl haxx se docs httpscripting html    HTTP Authentication  curl --user name password http   www example com    Put a file to a HTTP server with curl   curl --upload-file uploadfile http   www example com receive cgi   Send post data with curl   curl --data  birthyear 1905 amp press  20OK 20  http   www example com when cgi

User · Answer

Answering my own question   curl -X GET --basic --user username password        https   www example com mobile resource  curl -X DELETE --basic --user username password        https   www example com mobile resource  curl -X PUT --basic --user username password -d  param1 name param1 value         -d  param2 name param2 value  https   www example com mobile resource   POSTing a file and additional parameter  curl -X POST -F  param name   filepath filename         -F  extra param name extra param value  --basic --user username password        https   www example com mobile resource

[web-services] How to test web service using command line curl

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