Master the Magic of cURL: From IP Lookup to QR Codes and Beyond!
Here is how to install curl on macOS/Windows/Linux https://help.ubidots.com/en/articles/2165289-learn-how-to-install-run-curl-on-windows-macosx-linux
get ipinfo
$ curl ipinfo.io
{
"ip": "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx",
"hostname": "cpe-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.xxs.sss.sss.com",
"city": "Brooklyn",
"region": "New York",
"country": "US",
"loc": "xx.aaaa,yy.bbbb",
"org": "TTTTT Inc",
"postal": "xxxxx",
"timezone": "America/New_York",
"readme": "https://ipinfo.io/missingauth"
}%
generate QR code
The following is a QR code to access my personal website.
/ you can put anything you want to show(string, number, and url).
$ curl qrenco.de/https://github.com/koji
█████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████
████ ▄▄▄▄▄ ██▀▄███ ██ ▄▄▄▄▄ ████
████ █ █ █▄▀█▄▀█▀▄██ █ █ ████
████ █▄▄▄█ ██▄▀▀ ▀▄ █ █▄▄▄█ ████
████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█ █▄▀▄▀ ▀▄█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄████
████▄▄▄▀▄▄▄ ▄▀█▀ █▄▄ ███▄█▀████
████▄█▄ ▄ ▄██▀ ▄ ▄█▄▄▀ ▀█▄ ▄████
█████▀▄ █▄ ▀█ ██▄▄ ██ █▄ ████
████▄▀▀▄▀▄▄▄▀ █▀█▄██▀▀▀▄▀█▄ ▄████
████▄█▄▄█▄▄█ █▄▀ ▀█ ▄▄▄ █▀▀████
████ ▄▄▄▄▄ █ ▄█▄ ▀ ▄ █▄█ █ ▄████
████ █ █ █▄▀▄ ██ █ ▄▄ ▀▄▄████
████ █▄▄▄█ █ ▀█▄█▀▀▀▀█ ▀█▀▄████
████▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄▄██▄██▄▄▄▄▄███▄▄████
█████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████
we can create a function with the above command. Open .bashrc or .zshrc and add the following.
# generate qr code
gen_qr() {
curl qrenco.de/$1
}
[usage]
gen_qr https://github.com/koji
get weather info
If you change after /, you can see the weather that you want to know.
$ curl wttr.in/newyork
Weather report: newyork
\ / Clear
.-. +33(28) °F
― ( ) ― ↗ 0 mph
`-’ 9 mi
/ \ 0.0 in
┌─────────────┐
┌──────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────┤ Sun 21 Feb ├───────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ Morning │ Noon └──────┬──────┘ Evening │ Night │
├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ \ / Sunny │ \ / Sunny │ \ / Partly cloudy │ Cloudy │
│ .-. 21(12) °F │ .-. 30(21) °F │ _ /"".-. +33(28) °F │ .--. 28(21) °F │
│ ― ( ) ― ↘ 9-14 mph │ ― ( ) ― ↘ 8-9 mph │ \_( ). → 4-6 mph │ .-( ). ↗ 5-8 mph │
│ `-’ 6 mi │ `-’ 6 mi │ /(___(__) 6 mi │ (___.__)__) 6 mi │
│ / \ 0.0 in | 0% │ / \ 0.0 in | 0% │ 0.0 in | 0% │ 0.0 in | 0% │
└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────┐
┌──────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────┤ Mon 22 Feb ├───────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ Morning │ Noon └──────┬──────┘ Evening │ Night │
├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ Overcast │ .-. Light sleet │ .-. Moderate rain │ Overcast │
│ .--. 32(23) °F │ ( ). +35(26) °F │ ( ). +33(28) °F │ .--. 26 °F │
│ .-( ). ↑ 11-18 mph │ (___(__) ↑ 11-16 mph │ (___(__) ↗ 10-17 mph │ .-( ). ↗ 7-13 mph │
│ (___.__)__) 3 mi │ ‘ * ‘ * 6 mi │ ‚‘‚‘‚‘‚‘ 4 mi │ (___.__)__) 4 mi │
│ 0.0 in | 0% │ * ‘ * ‘ 0.0 in | 29% │ ‚’‚’‚’‚’ 0.2 in | 56% │ 0.1 in | 0% │
└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘
┌─────────────┐
┌──────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────┤ Tue 23 Feb ├───────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ Morning │ Noon └──────┬──────┘ Evening │ Night │
├──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ \ / Partly cloudy │ Overcast │ \ / Clear │ \ / Partly cloudy │
│ _ /"".-. 32(23) °F │ .--. +35(26) °F │ .-. +37(30) °F │ _ /"".-. +35(28) °F │
│ \_( ). → 9-14 mph │ .-( ). ↗ 11-15 mph │ ― ( ) ― ↗ 11-18 mph │ \_( ). ↗ 11-19 mph │
│ /(___(__) 6 mi │ (___.__)__) 6 mi │ `-’ 6 mi │ /(___(__) 6 mi │
│ 0.0 in | 0% │ 0.0 in | 0% │ / \ 0.0 in | 0% │ 0.0 in | 0% │
└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘
we can create a function with the above command. Open .bashrc or .zshrc and add the following.
# wttr - check weather
wttr() {
curl wttr.in/$1
}
[usage]
wttr newyork
get cryptocurrency rate
The rate.sx shows you famous currencies’ rate. If you put a specific currency, you can see the rate and a chart of the currency.
$ curl rate.sx
# if you want to see a specific currency, you can type curl rate.sx/etc
_
_ _ __ _| |_ ___ ____ __
| '_/ _` | _/ -_)(_-< \ /
__................................................__________|_| \__,_|\__\___()__/_\_\_____
' ' ' ' '
Market Cap: $1,693,391,363,316 =
24h Vol: $141,903,885,617 =
BTC Dominance: 61.7% =
┌──────┬──────┬─────────────┬──────────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────┐
│ Rank │ Coin │ Price (USD) │ Change (24H) │ Change (1H) │ Market Cap (USD) │ Spark (1H) │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 1 │ BTC │ 55806.9 │ -1.43% │ -0.84% │ 1.040T │ ▂▁▁▁▂▇▂▅▃▅▃▁ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 2 │ ETH │ 1856.99 │ -4.33% │ -1.30% │ 213.128B │ ▃▂▂▂▃▇▂▇▇▇▃▇ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 3 │ BNB │ 275.070 │ 4.42% │ -1.05% │ 42.507B │ ▃▁▁▁▅▇▁▅▅▇▁▁ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 4 │ USDT │ 0.999895 │ -0.00% │ 0.00% │ 34.254B │ ▂▁▇▂▁▇▂▅▃▂▁▇ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 5 │ DOT │ 37.5132 │ -3.17% │ -0.78% │ 34.148B │ ▃▁▁▂▁▇▅▁▃▅▂▃ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 6 │ ADA │ 1.03773 │ -5.29% │ -1.04% │ 32.286B │ ▂▂▁▁▂▅▁▂▅▇▃▂ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 7 │ XRP │ 0.526163 │ 0.60% │ -1.01% │ 23.890B │ ▂▃▁▁▁▇▁▃▇▇▂▁ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 8 │ LTC │ 217.838 │ -3.43% │ -2.08% │ 14.493B │ ▁▁▁▁▁▇▂▅▅▃▅▁ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 9 │ LINK │ 32.0389 │ -5.71% │ -1.67% │ 13.088B │ ▂▅▁▁▁▅▁▁▇▇▇▂ │
├──────┼──────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────┤
│ 10 │ BCH │ 676.781 │ -0.68% │ -1.11% │ 12.630B │ ▂▁▁▁▂▅▁▅▅▇▂▁ │
└──────┴──────┴─────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────┴──────────────┘
2021-02-22 04:40:23.577769 UTC
$ curl rate.sx/eth
▶ Ethereum (ETH) ▶ Sun 21 +1d -4.35%
│ 1970.0
│ ⡇ ⢠⠣⡀ ⡖⠙⢣
│ ⡇ ⢀⠼ ⠑⠄⣄⡄ ⢰⠁ ⢣
│ ⡇ ⡎ ⠈⢣⢣ ⡠⠔⠲⡀⣀ ⣄ ⡸ ⠑⡄
│ ⡇ ⢰⠁ ⠈⡆ ⢸⡀⡇ ⠇⠃⣇⠏⣆⡄⡜⢆ ⡅ ⡇
│ ⡇ ⢸ ⠣⡠⡜⡎⣧⠃ ⢹ ⠋⠈ ⠈⢱ ⠰⠃ ⢨
│ ⡇⢰⡄ ⡀ ⡜ ⠋ ⠳⠁ ⠈⡆
│ ⡿⡇⠘⠊⠸⡀ ⢰⡇ ⢀⡇ ⡇
│ ⠁ ⢇⡀⡜⢇ ⢰⡇⠠⢄⠄⢇⡘ ⡇ ⡀
│ ⠈⢱⠃⢸ ⢸⣇⠇ ⠘⠇ ⢸ ⢀ ⡀ ⣳
│ ⢸ ⢸⠹ ⠘⠊⠆⢿⢠⢇ ⢰⠑⠜⢸
│ ⢸ ⡜ ⠸⡎⢸ ⡜ ⠘⡄
│ ⡇⡆⡇ ⠃⠘⡄⡇ ⡇⣀ ⢀
│ ⠙⢸⠃ ⣇⠇ ⠈⠘⡄ ⢠⠋⡆ ⣻
│ ⣷ ⡇ ⢸ ⢱⢀⠇⢇
│ ⠋ ⢣ ⡇ ⢸⢸ ⠈⡆
│ ⢸⡆⠃ ⠛ ⠸⡀
│ ⠸⠁ ⡇
│ ⢱
│ ⢸⢀
│ ⠨⣿
│ ⠘⡄⡀
│ ⡇⣷
│ ⢳⠹⡀
│ ⠘ ⡇
│ ⡇
│ 1860.0
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
begin: $1941.5 (Sun 21 04:50) // end: $1857.0 (Mon 22 04:40)
high: $1973.9 (Sun 21 19:40) // low: $1857.0 (Mon 22 04:40)
avg: $1938.5 // median: $1915.5 // change: -84.524 (-4.35%)
Use @ for interval specification: /btc@10d, /eth@4w, /xrp@January (more in /:help)
we can create a function with the above command. Open .bashrc or .zshrc and add the following.
# crypto_rate
crypto_rate() {
# Check if symbol argument is provided
if [[ -n "$1" ]]; then
# Use the provided symbol
symbol="$1"
else
# Use default symbol (entire quote)
symbol=""
fi
# Construct the URL with the symbol
url="https://rate.sx/$symbol"
# Execute curl command and display the output
curl "$url"
}
[usage]
crypto_rate # for top cryptocurrencies
crypto_rate btc # for btc
crypto_rate eth # for eth
Watch animation on Terminal
$ curl ascii.live/nyan
.,
.. ;
;' c
.... ;
......... .,:.........................
,,,;;;;;;;;;,,,,,,,,,;;;;;;.c0KK00000O00O0000KKKo
oooxxxxxxxxxoooooooodxxxxxx.oK0kx000Ok00kxxk0O0Kk
kkk000000000kkkkkkkkO000000.o0000000O000c;;:cx00k ';
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.o0000O0Ox000':ddl;;;; ;odd.
OOOkxxxxxxxkOOOOOOOOOxxxx;, o000Ok00Ox0c,ldxdddddddxdd:.
xxxdddddddddxxxxxxxxxl;;;oo o0kk00000O0.:ddo,'ddo;dl.:d,
lllcccccccccllllllll;.ol .. oK0Ok0Ox000.:kOxc:do;od,ckO;
::::;;;;;;;:::::::::;'''';; ;0K0O000000kc:odc.,'.,,.cc.
;;,.........,;;;;;;;,..... :c'..';,...cc'..',....;'..
.. . ''k: . ..
,
.:
.. ,
'; o
.. ' ,
.
..
..
;' .c
lk
we can create a function with the above command. https://gist.github.com/koji/666f60f44ae3d980dd62ebdd24436511
[usage]
ascii_live
get a page
$ $ curl https://google.com
<HTML><HEAD><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
<TITLE>301 Moved</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>
<H1>301 Moved</H1>
The document has moved
<A HREF="https://www.google.com/">here</A>.
</BODY></HTML>
# save as a html
$ curl -o google.html https://google.com
# get only header info
$ curl --head https://google.com
HTTP/2 301
location: https://www.google.com/
content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
date: Mon, 22 Feb 2021 09:26:54 GMT
expires: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 09:26:54 GMT
cache-control: public, max-age=2592000
server: gws
content-length: 220
x-xss-protection: 0
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
alt-svc: h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-T051=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q050=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q046=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-Q043=":443"; ma=2592000,quic=":443"; ma=2592000; v="46,43"
get method
In this case, I used https://openweathermap.org/ with jq (I will post an article on jq soon).
$ curl "https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=London&appid=your_api_key&units=metric" | jq
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 469 100 461 100 8 2727 47 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 2775
{
"coord": {
"lon": -0.1257,
"lat": 51.5085
},
"weather": [
{
"id": 804,
"main": "Clouds",
"description": "overcast clouds",
"icon": "04n"
}
],
"base": "stations",
"main": {
"temp": 8.79,
"feels_like": 7.31,
"temp_min": 7.78,
"temp_max": 10,
"pressure": 1011,
"humidity": 87
},
"visibility": 10000,
"wind": {
"speed": 1.03,
"deg": 0
},
"clouds": {
"all": 100
},
"dt": 1613974910,
"sys": {
"type": 1,
"id": 1414,
"country": "GB",
"sunrise": 1613977229,
"sunset": 1614014870
},
"timezone": 0,
"id": 2643743,
"name": "London",
"cod": 200
}
post method
$ curl -d "param1=aaa¶m=bbb" https://api.com
post json
$ curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"key": "value"}' https://api.com
# with @ we can load a file
$ curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d @params.json https://api.com
Basic auth
$ curl -u id:password https://example.com
use Bearer
$ curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer xxxxxxxx' https://api.com
generate a curl command from Google Chrome
Open DevTool > Network > right click name > copy > copy as cURL or copy all as cURL
curl 'chrome-extension://jlmpjdjjbgclbocgajdjefcidcncaied/index.html' --compressed ;
curl 'chrome-extension://jlmpjdjjbgclbocgajdjefcidcncaied/css/home.94d1d1b7.css' \
-H 'Referer: ' \
-H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 11_2_1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.182 Safari/537.36' \
-H 'DNT: 1' \
--compressed ;
curl 'chrome-extension://jlmpjdjjbgclbocgajdjefcidcncaied/css/standalone/standalone.723be05a.css' \
-H 'Referer: ' \
-H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 11_2_1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.182 Safari/537.36' \
-H 'DNT: 1' \
--compressed ;
curl 'chrome-extension://jlmpjdjjbgclbocgajdjefcidcncaied/js/home.home.js' \
-H 'Referer: ' \
-H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 11_2_1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.182 Safari/537.36' \
-H 'DNT: 1' \
--compressed ;
curl 'chrome-extension://jlmpjdjjbgclbocgajdjefcidcncaied/standalone/stand
--compressed
Send Cookie
$ curl -b 'key=value; key2=value2;' https://test.cookie.com
$ curl --cookie 'key=value; key2=value2;' https://test.cookie.com
Save Cookie
$ curl -c cookie.txt https://test.cookie.com
Send back Cookie
Send back stored cookie file, cookie.txt
$ curl -b cookie.txt https://test.cookie.com
Upload file
$ curl -F file_name=@sample.txt https://uploader.com
measure the response (benchmark)
$ curl https://dev.to -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_total}\n"
0.150539
Only one-time measurement doesn’t make sense lol The following is do the same thing 10 times and calc the average.
$ for i in {1..10}; do curl https://dev.to -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_total}\n";done | awk '{sum+=$1;print $1} END {print "AVG: " sum/NR}'
0.464525
0.132371
0.136095
0.137686
0.143925
0.132686
0.141533
0.122407
0.131222
0.162784
AVG: 0.170523
we can create a function with the above command.
check_site() {
# Print prompts using print -n and echo
print -n "Enter the website URL: "
echo
# Read user input for URL
read -r url
# Check if URL is empty
if [[ -z "$url" ]]; then
echo "Error: Please enter a valid URL."
return 1
fi
# Print prompt for number of checks
print -n "Enter the number of checks to perform (average): "
echo
# Read user input for number of checks
read -r num_checks
# Check if number of checks is valid
if [[ ! "$num_checks" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then
echo "Error: Please enter a valid positive integer for number of checks."
return 1
fi
# Check if number of checks is valid
if [[ ! "$num_checks" =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]]; then
echo "Error: Please enter a valid positive integer for number of checks."
return 1
fi
# Initialize variables for total time and average
total_time=0
avg_time=0
# Loop for the specified number of checks
for (( i=1; i <= num_checks; i++ )); do
# Execute curl command and capture response time
response_time=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{time_total}\n" "$url")
total_time=$(echo "$total_time + $response_time" | bc)
# Print individual response time for each check (optional)
# echo "Check $i: $response_time seconds"
done
# Calculate average response time
avg_time=$(echo "scale=2; $total_time / $num_checks" | bc)
# Display results
echo "Average response time for $url over $num_checks checks: $avg_time seconds"
}
[usage]
Enter the website URL:
http://google.com
Enter the number of checks to perform (average):
10
Average response time for http://google.com over 10 checks: 1.24 seconds
