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| -rw-r--r-- | docs/TheArtOfHttpScripting | 39 |
1 files changed, 30 insertions, 9 deletions
diff --git a/docs/TheArtOfHttpScripting b/docs/TheArtOfHttpScripting index c85fe9220..1499df0ea 100644 --- a/docs/TheArtOfHttpScripting +++ b/docs/TheArtOfHttpScripting @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ Online: http://curl.haxx.se/docs/httpscripting.shtml Author: Daniel Stenberg <daniel@haxx.se> -Date: October 31, 2001 -Version: 0.5 +Date: November 6, 2001 +Version: 0.6 The Art Of Scripting HTTP Requests Using Curl ============================================= @@ -65,7 +65,8 @@ Version: 0.5 All HTTP replies contain a set of headers that are normally hidden, use curl's -i option to display them as well as the rest of the document. You can - also ask the remote server for ONLY the headers by using the -I option. + also ask the remote server for ONLY the headers by using the -I option (which + will make curl issue a HEAD request). 4. Forms @@ -122,17 +123,22 @@ Version: 0.5 <form method="POST" action="junk.cgi"> <input type=text name="birthyear"> - <input type=submit name=press value="OK"> + <input type=submit name=press value=" OK "> </form> And to use curl to post this form with the same data filled in as before, we could do it like: - curl -d "birthyear=1905&press=OK" www.hotmail.com/when/junk.cgi + curl -d "birthyear=1905&press=%20OK%20" www.hotmail.com/when/junk.cgi This kind of POST will use the Content-Type application/x-www-form-urlencoded and is the most widely used POST kind. + The data you send to the server MUST already be properly encoded, curl will + not do that for you. For example, if you want the data to contain a space, + you need to replace that space with %20 etc. Failing to comply with this + will most likely cause your data to be received wrongly and messed up. + 4.3 FILE UPLOAD POST Back in late 1995 they defined a new way to post data over HTTP. It was @@ -202,14 +208,18 @@ Version: 0.5 Authentication is the ability to tell the server your username and password so that it can verify that you're allowed to do the request you're doing. The - basic authentication used in HTTP is *plain* *text* based, which means it - sends username and password only slightly obfuscated, but still fully - readable by anyone that sniffs on the network between you and the remote - server. + Basic authentication used in HTTP (which is the type curl uses by default) is + *plain* *text* based, which means it sends username and password only + slightly obfuscated, but still fully readable by anyone that sniffs on the + network between you and the remote server. To tell curl to use a user and password for authentication: curl -u name:password www.secrets.com + + The site might require a different authentication method (check the headers + returned by the server), and then --ntlm, --digest, --negotiate or even + --anyauth might be options that suit you. Sometimes your HTTP access is only available through the use of a HTTP proxy. This seems to be especially common at various companies. A HTTP proxy @@ -218,6 +228,9 @@ Version: 0.5 curl -U proxyuser:proxypassword curl.haxx.se + If your proxy requires the authentication to be done using the NTLM method, + use --proxy-ntlm. + If you use any one these user+password options but leave out the password part, curl will prompt for the password interactively. @@ -309,6 +322,9 @@ Version: 0.5 curl -D headers_and_cookies www.cookiesite.com + (Take note that the -c option described below is a better way to store + cookies.) + Curl has a full blown cookie parsing engine built-in that comes to use if you want to reconnect to a server and use cookies that were stored from a previous connection (or handicrafted manually to fool the server into @@ -362,6 +378,11 @@ Version: 0.5 curl -E mycert.pem https://that.secure.server.com + curl also tries to verify that the server is who it claims to be, by + verifying the server's certificate against a CA cert bundle. Failing the + verification will cause curl to deny the connection. You must then use -k in + case you want to tell curl to ignore that the server can't be verified. + 12. REFERENCES RFC 2616 is a must to read if you want in-depth understanding of the HTTP |