http (1) - Linux Manuals

http: CLI, cURL-like tool for humans

NAME

httpie - CLI, cURL-like tool for humans

SYNOPSIS

http

[--json] [--form] [--pretty {all,colors,format,none}] [--style STYLE] [--print WHAT] [--verbose] [--headers] [--body] [--stream] [--output FILE] [--download] [--continue] [--session SESSION_NAME_OR_PATH | --session-read-only SESSION_NAME_OR_PATH] [--auth USER[:PASS]] [--auth-type {basic,digest}] [--proxy PROTOCOL:PROXY_URL] [--follow] [--verify VERIFY] [--cert CERT] [--cert-key CERT_KEY] [--timeout SECONDS] [--check-status] [--ignore-stdin] [--help] [--version] [--traceback] [--debug]
[METHOD] URL [REQUEST_ITEM [REQUEST_ITEM ...]]

DESCRIPTION

HTTPie is a CLI HTTP utility built out of frustration with existing tools. The goal is to make CLI interaction with HTTP-based services as human-friendly as possible.

HTTPie does so by providing an http command that allows for issuing arbitrary HTTP requests using a simple and natural syntax and displaying colorized responses.

OPTIONS

Positional Arguments

These arguments come after any flags and in the order they are listed here. Only URL is required.

METHOD

The HTTP method to be used for the request (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, ...).
This argument can be omitted in which case HTTPie will use POST if there is some data to be sent, otherwise GET:

        $ http example.org               # => GET

        $ http example.org hello=world   # => POST

URL

The scheme defaults to 'http://' if the URL does not include one.

You can also use a shorthand for localhost

        $ http :3000                     # => http://localhost:3000

        $ http :/foo                     # => http://localhost/foo

REQUEST_ITEM

Optional key-value pairs to be included in the request. The separator used determines the type:

':' HTTP headers
        Referer:http://httpie.org
        Cookie:foo=bar
        User-Agent:bacon/1.0

'==' URL parameters to be appended to the request URI
        search==httpie
         '=' Data fields to be serialized into a JSON object (with --json, -j) or form data (with --form, -f)
        name=HTTPie
        language=Python
        description='CLI HTTP client'

':=' Non-string JSON data fields (only with --json, -j)
        awesome:=true
        amount:=42
        colors:='["red", "green", "blue"]'

'@' Form file fields (only with --form, -f)
        cs@~/Documents/CV.pdf

'=@' A data field like '=', but takes a file path and embeds its content:
        essay=@Documents/essay.txt

':=@' A raw JSON field like ':=', but takes a file path and embeds its content:
        package:=@./package.json

You can use a backslash to escape a colliding separator in the field name:

        field-name-with\:colon=value

Predefined Content Types:

--json, -j

(default) Data items from the command line are serialized as a JSON object.

The Content-Type and Accept headers are set to application/json (if not specified).

--form, -f

Data items from the command line are serialized as form fields.

The Content-Type is set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded (if not specified). The presence of any file fields results in a multipart/form-data request.

Output Processing:

--pretty {all,colors,format,none}

Controls output processing. The value can be "none" to not prettify the output (default for redirected output), "all" to apply both colors and formatting (default for terminal output), "colors", or "format".

--style STYLE, -s STYLE

Output coloring style (default is "solarized"). One of:

algol, algol_nu, autumn, borland, bw, colorful, default, emacs, friendly, fruity, igor, lovelace, manni, monokai, murphy, native, paraiso-dark, paraiso-light, pastie, perldoc, rrt, solarized, tango, trac, vim, vs, xcode

For this option to work properly, please make sure that the $TERM environment variable is set to "xterm-256color" or similar (e.g., via `export TERM=xterm-256color' in your ~/.bashrc).

Output Options:

--print WHAT, -p WHAT

String specifying what the output should contain:

'H' request headers 'B' request body 'h' response headers 'b' response body

The default behaviour is 'hb' (i.e., the response headers and body is printed), if standard output is not redirected. If the output is piped to another program or to a file, then only the response body is printed by default.

--verbose, -v

Print the whole request as well as the response. Shortcut for --print=,HBbh/.

--headers, -h

Print only the response headers. Shortcut for --print=,h/.

--body, -b

Print only the response body. Shortcut for --print=,b/.

--stream, -S

Always stream the output by line, i.e., behave like `tail -f'.

Without --stream and with --pretty (either set or implied), HTTPie fetches the whole response before it outputs the processed data.

Set this option when you want to continuously display a prettified long-lived response, such as one from the Twitter streaming API.

It is useful also without --pretty: It ensures that the output is flushed more often and in smaller chunks.

--output FILE, -o FILE

Save output to FILE. If --download is set, then only the response body is saved to the file. Other parts of the HTTP exchange are printed to stderr.

--download, -d

Do not print the response body to stdout. Rather, download it and store it in a file. The filename is guessed unless specified with --output [filename]. This action is similar to the default behaviour of wget.

--continue, -c

Resume an interrupted download. Note that the --output option needs to be specified as well.

Sessions:

--session SESSION_NAME_OR_PATH

Create, or reuse and update a session. Within a session, custom headers, auth credential, as well as any cookies sent by the server persist between requests.

Session files are stored in:

/home/gaetano/.httpie/sessions/<HOST>/<SESSION_NAME>.json.

--session-read-only SESSION_NAME_OR_PATH

Create or read a session without updating it form the request/response exchange.

Authentication:

--auth USER[:PASS], -a USER[:PASS]

If only the username is provided (-a username), HTTPie will prompt for the password.

--auth-type {basic,digest}

The authentication mechanism to be used. Defaults to "basic".

"basic": Basic HTTP auth "digest": Digest HTTP auth

Network:

--proxy PROTOCOL:PROXY_URL

String mapping protocol to the URL of the proxy (e.g. http:http://foo.bar:3128). You can specify multiple proxies with different protocols.

--follow

Set this flag if full redirects are allowed (e.g. re-POST-ing of data at new Location).

--verify VERIFY

Set to "no" to skip checking the host's SSL certificate. You can also pass the path to a CA_BUNDLE file for private certs. You can also set the REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE environment variable. Defaults to "yes".

--cert CERT

You can specify a local cert to use as client side SSL certificate. This file may either contain both private key and certificate or you may specify --cert-key separately.

--cert-key CERT_KEY

The private key to use with SSL. Only needed if --cert is given and the certificate file does not contain the private key.

--timeout SECONDS

The connection timeout of the request in seconds. The default value is 30 seconds.

--check-status

By default, HTTPie exits with 0 when no network or other fatal errors occur. This flag instructs HTTPie to also check the HTTP status code and exit with an error if the status indicates one.

When the server replies with a 4xx (Client Error) or 5xx (Server Error) status code, HTTPie exits with 4 or 5 respectively. If the response is a 3xx (Redirect) and --follow hasn't been set, then the exit status is 3. Also an error message is written to stderr if stdout is redirected.

Troubleshooting:

--ignore-stdin

Do not attempt to read stdin.

--help

Show this help message and exit.

--version

Show version and exit.

--traceback

Prints exception traceback should one occur.

--debug

Prints exception traceback should one occur, and also other information that is useful for debugging HTTPie itself and for reporting bugs.

For every --OPTION there is also a --no-OPTION that reverts OPTION to its default value.

REPORTING BUGS

Suggestions and bug reports are greatly appreciated: <https://github.com/jakubroztocil/httpie/issues>

AUTHOR

httpie was written by Jakub Roztocil <jakub [at] roztocil.name>.

This manual page was written for the Debian project (and may be used by others).