curl for HTTP requests in Linux CLI - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using curl for HTTP requests

📖 Scenario: You want to check the status and content of a website from your command line. Using curl helps you send HTTP requests easily.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use curl to send a simple HTTP GET request, add options to customize the request, and display the response.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use curl to send HTTP GET requests

Add options to curl commands

Display the HTTP response content in the terminal

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Checking website status and content quickly from the command line helps troubleshoot network or server issues.

💼 Career

System administrators, developers, and testers often use <code>curl</code> to automate web requests and monitor services.

1

Send a basic HTTP GET request

Type the command curl http://example.com to send a simple HTTP GET request to http://example.com.

Linux CLI

# Type the curl command to get the content from http://example.com
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curl followed by the URL to get the webpage content.

2

Add the -I option to fetch headers only

Add the -I option to the curl command to fetch only the HTTP headers from http://example.com. Type curl -I http://example.com.

Linux CLI

curl http://example.com
# Modify the above command to fetch only headers using -I
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The -I option tells curl to fetch only the HTTP headers.

3

Use --silent to hide progress and errors

Add the --silent option to the curl command with -I to hide progress and error messages. Type curl -I --silent http://example.com.

Linux CLI

curl -I http://example.com
# Add --silent option to hide progress and errors
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The --silent option makes curl quiet, showing only the output.

4

Display the HTTP response body with status code

Use curl -w "%{http_code}\n" -s http://example.com to display the HTTP response body silently and then print the HTTP status code on a new line.

Linux CLI

curl -I --silent http://example.com
# Use curl with -w and -s options to show body and status code
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The -w "%{http_code}\n" option prints the HTTP status code after the response body. The -s option hides progress.