[SOLVED] How to test web service using command line curl

Issue

I am building a web service for a web application, and I would like a simple tool to test this as I am developing. I have tried some firefox plug-ins (Poster, 'REST Client'), and even though these work fine I have been unable to upload files with them.

Also, I would rather have a command-line tool that I can use to easily write a set of integration tests for this web service and that I can send to consumers of this web service as an example.

I know that curl can work for this but would like a few examples, especially around authentication (using HTTP Basic) and file uploads.

Solution

In addition to existing answers it is often desired to format the REST output (typically JSON and XML lacks indentation). Try this:

$ curl https://api.twitter.com/1/help/configuration.xml  | xmllint --format -
$ curl https://api.twitter.com/1/help/configuration.json | python -mjson.tool

Tested on Ubuntu 11.0.4/11.10.

Another issue is the desired content type. Twitter uses .xml/.json extension, but more idiomatic REST would require Accept header:

$ curl -H "Accept: application/json"

Answered By - Tomasz Nurkiewicz

Answer Checked By - Katrina (WPSolving Volunteer)