This subchapter looks at cURL, a UNIX (and Linux) command line tool.
curl is used to interact with the internet.
Teach Yourself UNIX/Linux System Administration and Shell Programming
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This subchapter looks at cURL, a UNIX (and Linux) command line tool.
curl is used to interact with the internet. Linux also includes the similar wget command tool. You can download wget for free using fink.
cURL is a command line tool and accompanying library for transferring data over the internet. cURL supports a wide variety of internet protocols, including DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMTP, SMTPS, Telnet, and TFTP.
You can use curl to download the content of a URL. The following command displays the HTML for Google as the STDOUT (on your Terminal screen):
$ curl http://www.google.com
You can redirect the results to file using the standard UNIX/Linux redirect. You will be given some status information if you redirect.
$ curl http://www.google.com > google.html
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 10559 0 10559 0 0 26690 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 323k
You can use the -o (lower case) to save the downloaded file with the name of your choice. You will see progress meter information as the download progresses. In the example, the download was so fast that only one status report was created.
$ curl -o google.303 www.google.com
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 219 100 219 0 0 800 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0
Coding example: I am making heavily documented and explained open source code for a method to play music for free — almost any song, no subscription fees, no download costs, no advertisements, all completely legal. This is done by building a front-end to YouTube (which checks the copyright permissions for you).
View music player in action: www.musicinpublic.com/.
Create your own copy from the original source code/ (presented for learning programming).
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Because I no longer have the computer and software to make PDFs, the book is available as an HTML file, which you can convert into a PDF.
Teach Yourself UNIX/Linux System Administration and Shell Programming
Building a free downloadable text book on computer programming for university, college, community college, and high school classes in computer programming.
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Some or all of the material on this web page appears in the
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This web site handcrafted on Macintosh computers using Tom Bender’s Tex-Edit Plus and served using FreeBSD .
†UNIX used as a generic term unless specifically used as a trademark (such as in the phrase “UNIX certified”). UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Ltd.
Names and logos of various OSs are trademarks of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2013 Milo
Created: February 28, 2013
Last Updated: February 28, 2013
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