How to PUT a json object with an array using curl
JsonCurlJson Problem Overview
I have a series of data to enter into database. The user interface to enter the data isn't good for bulk entry, so I'm trying to formulate a command line equivalent. When I examine the network request of the UI in chrome, I see a PUT request of a json object. When I try to replicate the request
curl -H 'Accept: application/json' -X PUT '{"tags":["tag1","tag2"],"question":"Which band?","answers":[{"id":"a0","answer":"Answer1"},{"id":"a1","answer":"answer2"}]}' http://example.com/service`
I get a error
> curl: (3) [globbing] nested braces not supported at pos X
Where X is the character position of first "[".
How can I PUT a json object that includes an array?
Json Solutions
Solution 1 - Json
Your command line should have a -d/--data inserted before the string you want to send in the PUT, and you want to set the Content-Type and not Accept.
curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X PUT -d '[JSON]' \
http://example.com/service
Using the exact JSON data from the question, the full command line would become:
curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X PUT \
-d '{"tags":["tag1","tag2"],
"question":"Which band?",
"answers":[{"id":"a0","answer":"Answer1"},
{"id":"a1","answer":"answer2"}]}' \
http://example.com/service
Note: JSON data wrapped only for readability, not valid for curl
request.
Solution 2 - Json
Although the original post had other issues (i.e. the missing "-d"), the error message is more generic.
> curl: (3) [globbing] nested braces not supported at pos X
This is because curly braces {} and square brackets [] are special globbing characters in curl. To turn this globbing off, use the "-g" option.
As an example, the following Solr facet query will fail without the "-g" to turn off curl globbing:
curl -g 'http://localhost:8983/solr/query?json.facet={x:{terms:"myfield"}}'
Solution 3 - Json
It should be mentioned that the Accept
header tells the server something about what we are accepting back, whereas the relevant header in this context is Content-Type
It's often advisable to specify Content-Type
as application/json
when sending JSON. For curl the syntax is:
-H 'Content-Type: application/json'
So the complete curl command will be:
curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Accept: application/json' -X PUT -d '{"tags":["tag1","tag2"],"question":"Which band?","answers":[{"id":"a0","answer":"Answer1"},{"id":"a1","answer":"answer2"}]}' http://example.com/service`
Solution 4 - Json
The only thing that helped is to use a file of JSON instead of json body text. Based on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15912924/how-to-send-file-contents-as-body-entity-using-curl
Solution 5 - Json
Try using a single quote instead of double quotes along with -g
Following scenario worked for me
curl -g -d '{"collection":[{"NumberOfParcels":1,"Weight":1,"Length":1,"Width":1,"Height":1}]}" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" --user [email protected]:123456 -X POST https://yoururl.com
WITH
curl -g -d "{'collection':[{'NumberOfParcels':1,'Weight':1,'Length':1,'Width':1,'Height':1}]}" -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" --user [email protected]:123456 -X POST https://yoururl.com
This especially resolved my error curl command error : bad url colon is first character