cURL: Getting Started
A definitive guide to using cURL to make requests on the web.
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Introduction
cURL (Client URL), is a command-line-based tool that allows interaction within computer networks to send and receive data across the web. cURL supports a variety of computer network protocols, thereby making it a very good tool for fetching information from remote servers.
GET Command with cURL
cURL has a variety of commands that can be used to interact with web servers. One of those is the GET command. This is used to make HTTP requests to servers and get data from them. It is a very simplistic tool, however, it is very effective for activities such as retrieving files. This guide will allow you to get started with cURL's GET command to download an image from the web.
Prerequisites
Before getting started with CURL, you need to ensure it is installed on your computer. If you are using either MacOS or Linux of any variant, cURL will be pre-installed, however, this is not the case for Windows users; you will need to head over to https://curl.se/download.html to download and install it on your computer.
Download an Image
Launch the Terminal or Command Prompt: If you are on Linux or MacOS; open your terminal. For Windows users, open the Command Prompt.
To download the image you will need to construct a CURL command. The syntax for doing so is as follows:
curl -O [URL]. You will need to replace `[URL]` with the actual link to the image you want to download. In our case, this will be: https://documentwrite.dev/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/document-write-logo.pngPress the
Enterkey to execute the command. This will make cURL connect to the server, request the image and save it in your current working directory.Once the execution completes, you can locate your image named
document-write-logo.png, in your terminal's working directory.
Conclusion
You successfully downloaded a picture from the internet using cURL's GET command without having to write any code. cURL is a valuable tool for retrieving data and resources from distant servers because of its simplicity and capability. CURL's features can be used to efficiently conduct a wide range of jobs, whether you're a project manager or a developer.
Keep in mind that cURL has numerous complex features and choices for handling various types of requests and answers. This book covers the fundamentals of utilizing cURL's GET command, but there is much more to discover as you become more acquainted with the tool.
