Send request to cURL with post data sourced from a file

Question

I need to make a POST request via cURL from the command line. Data for this request is located in a file. I know that via PUT this could be done with the --upload-file option.

curl host:port/post-file -H "Content-Type: text/xml" --data "contents_of_file"

Check my answer, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6213509/send-json-post-using-php/6213693#6213693 — Muhammad Zeeshan, Jun 20 '11 at 09:06
Sorry maybe i mistakenly described my problem i need to send request not via php-curl but just via curl command from command line from linux os. — , Jun 20 '11 at 09:13
See also [send/post xml file using curl command line](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3007253/send-post-xml-file-using-curl-command-line). — Vadzim, Oct 09 '13 at 07:59

score 546 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 18 '18 at 22:54

546

You're looking for the --data-binary argument:

curl -i -X POST host:port/post-file \
  -H "Content-Type: text/xml" \
  --data-binary "@path/to/file"

In the example above, -i prints out all the headers so that you can see what's going on, and -X POST makes it explicit that this is a post. Both of these can be safely omitted without changing the behaviour on the wire. The path to the file needs to be preceded by an @ symbol, so curl knows to read from a file.

edited Feb 18 '18 at 22:54

Marian

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answered Jun 20 '11 at 09:13

Richard J

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@ɢʜʘʂʈʀɛɔʘɴ in this case it would be `.xml` – dennismonsewicz Jun 04 '14 at 13:39
86

the `@` part is extremely important! – Ron Klein Aug 17 '14 at 15:13
So we use --data-binary parameter, but the actual file content can be text? Since XML isn't typically binary. – David Jul 13 '15 at 20:34
yeah, the file content can be anything. If you want to make sure that the server knows that you're giving it xml, then the -H "Content-Type: text/xml" will do that for you. – Richard J Jul 27 '15 at 12:11
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actually you can use just -d flag – Anatoly Yakimchuk Dec 09 '16 at 12:26
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@Tol182 `-d` will cause `curl` to strip newlines, but `--data-binary` won't. – Asclepius Jan 12 '17 at 20:19
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For those that can't get it to work, make sure that you are specifying the content type in your headers! – Susanne Peng Jul 05 '18 at 17:03
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If you're executing the curl command from the same path as your data file, its just `--data-binary "@file"`. – Cale Sweeney May 05 '20 at 15:39
does curl allow an ip address in the hostname parameter? – T3.0 Aug 10 '20 at 16:11

score 109 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 20 '19 at 12:08

109

I need to make a POST request via Curl from the command line. Data for this request is located in a file...

All you need to do is have the --data argument start with a @:

curl -H "Content-Type: text/xml" --data "@path_of_file" host:port/post-file-path

For example, if you have the data in a file called stuff.xml then you would do something like:

curl -H "Content-Type: text/xml" --data "@stuff.xml" host:port/post-file-path

The stuff.xml filename can be replaced with a relative or full path to the file: @../xml/stuff.xml, @/var/tmp/stuff.xml, ...

edited Mar 20 '19 at 12:08

slartidan

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answered Nov 03 '17 at 17:58

Gray

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In case you need to send a named field, you can also use `--data "name@stuff"`. – Hermann Sep 03 '19 at 15:09
very slick solution! 100% – Leon Africa Dec 02 '21 at 16:57

score 26 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 24 '20 at 11:39

26

If you are using form data to upload file,in which a parameter name must be specified , you can use:

curl -X POST -i -F "parametername=@filename" -F "additional_parm=param2" host:port/xxx

edited Apr 24 '20 at 11:39

alessiosavi

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answered Jan 05 '17 at 10:32

Lucas Liu

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score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Feb 19 '19 at 14:50

Most of answers are perfect here, but when I landed here for my particular problem, I have to upload binary file (XLSX spread sheet) using POST method, I see one thing missing, i.e. usually its not just file you load, you may have more form data elements, like comment to file or tags to file etc as was my case. Hence, I would like to add it here as it was my use case, so that it could help others.

curl -POST -F comment=mycomment -F file_type=XLSX -F file_data=@/your/path/to/file.XLSX http://yourhost.example.com/api/example_url

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 19 '22 at 15:35

I was having a similar issue in passing the file as a param. Using -F allowed the file to be passed as form data, but the content type of the file was application/octet-stream. My endpoint was expecting text/csv.

You are able to set the MIME type of the file with the following syntax:

-F 'file=@path/to/file;type=<MIME_TYPE>

So the full cURL command would look like this for a CSV file:

curl -X POST -F 'file=@path/to/file.csv;type=text/csv' https://test.com

There is good documentation on this and other options here: https://catonmat.net/cookbooks/curl/make-post-request#post-form-data

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Dec 24 '19 at 03:15

I had to use a HTTP connection, because on HTTPS there is default file size limit.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/IIS-Support-Blog/Solution-for-Request-Entity-Too-Large-error/ba-p/501134

    curl -i -X 'POST' -F 'file=@/home/testeincremental.xlsx' 'http://example.com/upload.aspx?user=example&password=example123&type=XLSX'

Send request to cURL with post data sourced from a file

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