How to pass payload via JSON file for curl?
JsonCurlJson Problem Overview
I can successfully create a place via curl
executing the following command:
$ curl -vX POST https://server/api/v1/places.json -d "
auth_token=B8dsbz4HExMskqUa6Qhn& \
place[name]=Fuelstation Central& \
place[city]=Grossbeeren& \
place[address]=Buschweg 1& \
place[latitude]=52.3601& \
place[longitude]=13.3332& \
place[washing]=true& \
place[founded_at_year]=2000& \
place[products][]=diesel& \
place[products][]=benzin \
"
The server returns HTTP/1.1 201 Created
.
Now I want to store the payload in a JSON file which looks like this:
// testplace.json
{
"auth_token" : "B8dsbz4HExMskqUa6Qhn",
"name" : "Fuelstation Central",
"city" : "Grossbeeren",
"address" : "Buschweg 1",
"latitude" : 52.3601,
"longitude" : 13.3332,
"washing" : true,
"founded_at_year" : 2000,
"products" : ["diesel","benzin"]
}
So I modify the command to be executed like this:
$ curl -vX POST http://server/api/v1/places.json -d @testplace.json
This fails returning HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
. Why?
Json Solutions
Solution 1 - Json
curl
sends POST requests with the default content type of application/x-www-form-urlencoded
. If you want to send a JSON request, you will have to specify the correct content type header:
$ curl -vX POST http://server/api/v1/places.json -d @testplace.json \
--header "Content-Type: application/json"
But that will only work if the server accepts json input. The .json
at the end of the url may only indicate that the output is json, it doesn't necessarily mean that it also will handle json input. The API documentation should give you a hint on whether it does or not.
The reason you get a 401
and not some other error is probably because the server can't extract the auth_token
from your request.
Solution 2 - Json
To clarify how to actually specify a file that contains the JSON to post, note that it's with the @
sign as shown in the OP
e.g. a typical post to a local .NET Core API:
curl -X POST https://localhost:5001/api -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/some/directory/some.json
Solution 3 - Json
You can cat
the contents of a json
file to curl
via the --data-raw
parameter
curl 'https://api.com/route' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data-raw "$(cat ~/.json/payload-2022-03-03.json | grep -v '^\s*//')"
Note: comments in the json file are filtered out via grep -v '^\s*//'
You can also pass the data to curl
via stdin
using grep
or cat
grep -v '^\s*//' ~/.json/payload-2022-03-03.json | curl 'https://api.com/route' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d @-
cat ~/.json/payload-2022-03-03.json | grep -v '^\s*//' | curl 'https://api.com/route' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d @-