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up vote 47 down vote favorite
18

When I echo I get this, which runs when I enter it into the terminal

curl -i \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Content-Type:application/json" \
-X POST --data '{"account":{"email":"[email protected]","screenName":"akdgdtk","type":"NIKE","passwordSettings":{"password":"Starwars1","passwordConfirm":"Starwars1"}},"firstName":"Test","lastName":"User","middleName":"ObiWan","locale":"en_US","registrationSiteId":"520","receiveEmail":"false","dateOfBirth":"1984-12-25","mobileNumber":"9175555555","gender":"male","fuelActivationDate":"2010-10-22","postalCode":"10022","country":"US","city":"Beverton","state":"OR","bio":"This is a test user","jpFirstNameKana":"unsure","jpLastNameKana":"ofthis","height":"80","weight":"175","distanceUnit":"MILES","weightUnit":"POUNDS","heightUnit":"FT/INCHES"}' https://xxx:[email protected]/xxxxx/xxxx/xxxx

But when run in the bash script file, I get this error

curl: (6) Could not resolve host: application; nodename nor servname provided, or not known
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: is; nodename nor servname provided, or not known
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: a; nodename nor servname provided, or not known
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: test; nodename nor servname provided, or not known
curl: (3) [globbing] unmatched close brace/bracket at pos 158

this is the code in the file

curl -i \
-H '"'Accept: application/json'"' \
-H '"'Content-Type:application/json'"' \
-X POST --data "'"'{"account":{"email":"'$email'","screenName":"'$screenName'","type":"'$theType'","passwordSettings":{"password":"'$password'","passwordConfirm":"'$password'"}},"firstName":"'$firstName'","lastName":"'$lastName'","middleName":"'$middleName'","locale":"'$locale'","registrationSiteId":"'$registrationSiteId'","receiveEmail":"'$receiveEmail'","dateOfBirth":"'$dob'","mobileNumber":"'$mobileNumber'","gender":"'$gender'","fuelActivationDate":"'$fuelActivationDate'","postalCode":"'$postalCode'","country":"'$country'","city":"'$city'","state":"'$state'","bio":"'$bio'","jpFirstNameKana":"'$jpFirstNameKana'","jpLastNameKana":"'$jpLastNameKana'","height":"'$height'","weight":"'$weight'","distanceUnit":"MILES","weightUnit":"POUNDS","heightUnit":"FT/INCHES"}'"'" "https://xxx:[email protected]/xxxxx/xxxx/xxxx"

I assume there's an issue with my quotation marks, but I've played with them a lot and I've gotten similar errors. All the variables are defined with different functions in the actual script

share|improve this question
up vote 110 down vote accepted

You don't need to pass the quotes enclosing the custom headers to curl. Also, your variables in the middle of the data argument should be quoted.

Try this code in your script:

curl -i \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Content-Type:application/json" \
-X POST --data '{"account":{"email":"'"$email"'","screenName":"'"$screenName"'","type":"'"$theType"'","passwordSettings":{"password":"'"$password"'","passwordConfirm":"'"$password"'"}},"firstName":"'"$firstName"'","lastName":"'"$lastName"'","middleName":"'"$middleName"'","locale":"'"$locale"'","registrationSiteId":"'"$registrationSiteId"'","receiveEmail":"'"$receiveEmail"'","dateOfBirth":"'"$dob"'","mobileNumber":"'"$mobileNumber"'","gender":"'"$gender"'","fuelActivationDate":"'"$fuelActivationDate"'","postalCode":"'"$postalCode"'","country":"'"$country"'","city":"'"$city"'","state":"'"$state"'","bio":"'"$bio"'","jpFirstNameKana":"'"$jpFirstNameKana"'","jpLastNameKana":"'"$jpLastNameKana"'","height":"'"$height"'","weight":"'"$weight"'","distanceUnit":"MILES","weightUnit":"POUNDS","heightUnit":"FT/INCHES"}' "https://xxx:[email protected]/xxxxx/xxxx/xxxx"

The double quotes in the -H arguments (as in -H "foo bar") tell bash to keep what's inside as a single argument (even if it contains spaces).

The single quotes in the --data argument (as in --data 'foo bar') do the same, except they pass all text verbatim (including double quote characters and the dollar sign).

To insert a variable in the middle of a single quoted text, you have to end the single quote, then concatenate with the double quoted variable, and re-open the single quote to continue the text: 'foo bar'"$variable"'more foo'.

share|improve this answer
1  
"'"$<variable name>"'" solved my problem where I needed quotes to be not omitted. Thanks. – baltusaj May 5 '15 at 0:52
    
you saved my script.. thanks. :) – Éderson T. Szlachta Sep 21 '15 at 20:03
1  
This solution works but I think you can emit the extra double quotes surrounding the variable. So instead of this: --data '{"account": {"email": "'"$email"'"} }' you can do this: --data '{"account": {"email": "'$email'"} }' – twistedstream Sep 9 at 15:40
up vote 3 down vote

Curl can post binary data from a file so I have been using process substitution and taking advantage of file descriptors whenever I need to post something nasty with curl and still want access to the vars in the current shell. Something like:

curl "http://localhost:8080" \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Content-Type:application/json" \
--data @<(cat <<EOF
{
  "me": "$USER",
  "something": $(date +%s)
  }
EOF
)

This winds up looking like --data @/dev/fd/<some number> which just gets processed like a normal file. Anyway if you wanna see it work locally just run nc -l 8080 first and in a different shell fire off the above command. You will see something like:

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:8080
User-Agent: curl/7.43.0
Accept: application/json
Content-Type:application/json
Content-Length: 43

{  "me": "username",  "something": 1465057519  }

As you can see you can call subshells and whatnot as well as reference vars in the heredoc. Happy hacking hope this helps with the '"'"'""""'''""''.

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up vote 0 down vote
  • the info from Sir Athos worked perfectly !!

Here's how I had to use it in my curl script for couchDB. It really helped out a lot. Thanks!

bin/curl -X PUT "db_domain_name_:5984/_config/vhosts/$1.couchdb" -d '"/'"$1"'/"' --user "admin:*****"
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