cURL (client URL) is a command line utility used by developers to transport data to and from a server. At its most basic, cURL allows you to communicate with a server by defining the location (in the form of a URL) and the data you want to transmit. cURL operates on practically every platform and supports a variety of protocols, including HTTP and HTTPS.
API tools enable an interactive user interface (UI) enabling you to send various types of requests to URLs, as well as receive and process requests. The cURL command performs the same function, but in your terminal.
cURL is available for many different operating systems such as Mac and Windows, where it actually comes pre-installed. Alternatively, the programme can be downloaded from the cURL website.
What are cURL requests used for?
cURL is a fundamental part of the web scraping infrastructure. Although web scraping frequently seems like it happens at the click of a button, it is actually a group of elements that come together to enable data collecting, including internet protocols, web crawlers, tools, and more. cURL is one of these elements.
The cURL command is primarily given to transmit data to or receive data from, as well as other various reasons. These requests are referred to as a GET request and a POST request.
You can easily obtain data from a source or API by using the GET method with cURL. The cURL command defaults to performing a GET call to the provided URL if no flags or arguments are passed. You can also use the cURL command with parameters and values to use an alternative request mechanism.
You can use the POST method and the cURL command to send data to a server via an API. The API processes the data, then saves it to a database and delivers a response reflecting the progress of your request.
How do you run cURL requests?
With cURL, you may experiment with different API calls in a command-line interface like the Windows command prompt or the macOS Terminal. To test out the APIs, there is no need to create a functioning web application.
Just like a web browser, cURL issues HTTP requests. Simply type “curl” and the site’s URL into the command line to request a web page. The response from the web server is seen right away in your command-line interface. If an HTML page was requested, you will receive the page source, which is what a browser would typically view.
