httpie-cli/README.rst

HTTPie: cURL for humans
=======================

**HTTPie is a CLI HTTP utility** built out of frustration with existing tools. The goal is to make CLI interaction with HTTP-based services as human-friendly as possible.

HTTPie does so by providing an ``http`` command that allows for issuing arbitrary HTTP requests using a **simple and natural syntax** and displaying **colorized responses**:

.. image:: https://github.com/jkbr/httpie/raw/master/httpie.png
    :alt: HTTPie compared to cURL

Under the hood, HTTPie uses the excellent `Requests <http://python-requests.org>`_ and `Pygments <http://pygments.org/>`_ Python libraries.

Installation
------------

The latest **stable version** of HTTPie can always be installed (or updated to) via `pip <http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/index.html>`_::

    pip install -U httpie


Or, you can install the **development version** directly from GitHub:

.. image:: https://secure.travis-ci.org/jkbr/httpie.png
    :target: http://travis-ci.org/jkbr/httpie
    :alt: Build Status of the master branch

::

    pip install -U https://github.com/jkbr/httpie/tarball/master


Usage
-----

Hello world::

    http GET httpie.org

Synopsis::

    http [flags] METHOD URL [items]

There are four types of key-value pair items available:

Headers
   Arbitrary HTTP headers. The ``:`` character is used to separate a header's name from its value, e.g., ``X-API-Token:123``.

Simple data fields
  Data items are included in the request body. Depending on the ``Content-Type``, they are automatically serialized as a JSON ``Object`` (default) or ``application/x-www-form-urlencoded`` (the ``-f`` flag). Data items use ``=`` as the separator, e.g., ``hello=world``.

File fields
  Only available with ``-f`` / ``--form``. Use ``@`` as the separator, e.g., ``screenshot@/path/to/file.png``.

Raw JSON fields
  This item type is needed when ``Content-Type`` is JSON and a field's value is a ``Boolean``, ``Number``,  nested ``Object`` or an ``Array``, because simple data items are always serialized as ``String``. E.g. ``pies:=[1,2,3]``.

Examples
^^^^^^^^
::

    http PATCH api.example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123 name=John email=john@example.org age:=29


The following request is issued::

    PATCH /person/1 HTTP/1.1
    User-Agent: HTTPie/0.1
    X-API-Token: 123
    Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

    {"name": "John", "email": "john@example.org", "age": 29}


It can easily be changed to a 'form' request using the ``-f`` (or ``--form``) flag, which produces::

    PATCH /person/1 HTTP/1.1
    User-Agent: HTTPie/0.1
    X-API-Token: 123
    Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8

    age=29&name=John&email=john%40example.org

It is also possible to send ``multipart/form-data`` requests, i.e., to simulate a file upload form submission. It is done using the ``--form`` / ``-f`` flag and passing one or more file fields::

    http -f POST example.com/job-application email=John cv@~/Documents/cv.pdf

The above will send a request equivalent to submitting the following form::

    <form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" action="http://example.com/job-application" >
        <input type="text" name="email" />
        <input type="file" name="cv" />
    </form>

A whole request body can be passed in via ``stdin`` instead::

    echo '{"name": "John"}' | http PATCH example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123
    # Or:
    http POST example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123 < person.json


Flags
^^^^^
Most of the flags mirror the arguments understood by ``requests.request``. See ``http -h`` for more details::

    HTTPie - cURL for humans.

    positional arguments:
      METHOD                HTTP method to be used for the request (GET, POST,
                            PUT, DELETE, PATCH, ...).
      URL                   Protocol defaults to http:// if the URL does not
                            include it.
      items                 HTTP header (header:value), data field (field=value),
                            raw JSON field (field:=value) or file field
                            (field@/path/to/file).

    optional arguments:
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      --version             show program's version number and exit
      --json, -j            Serialize data items as a JSON object and set Content-
                            Type to application/json, if not specified.
      --form, -f            Serialize fields as form values. The Content-Type is
                            set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. The presence
                            of any file fields results into a multipart/form-data
                            request. Note that Content-Type is not automatically
                            set if explicitely specified.
      --traceback           Print exception traceback should one occur.
      --pretty              If stdout is a terminal, the response is prettified by
                            default (colorized and indented if it is JSON). This
                            flag ensures prettifying even when stdout is
                            redirected.
      --ugly, -u            Do not prettify the response.
      --print OUTPUT_OPTIONS, -p OUTPUT_OPTIONS
                            String specifying what should the output contain. "H"
                            stands for request headers and "B" for request body.
                            "h" stands for response headers and "b" for response
                            body. Defaults to "hb" which means that the whole
                            response (headers and body) is printed.
      --verbose, -v         Print the whole request as well as response. Shortcut
                            for --print=HBhb.
      --headers, -t         Print only the response headers. Shortcut for
                            --print=h.
      --body, -b            Print only the response body. Shortcut for --print=b.
      --style STYLE, -s STYLE
                            Output coloring style, one of autumn, borland, bw,
                            colorful, default, emacs, friendly, fruity, manni,
                            monokai, murphy, native, pastie, perldoc, solarized,
                            tango, trac, vim, vs. Defaults to solarized.
      --auth AUTH, -a AUTH  username:password
      --verify VERIFY       Set to "yes" to check the host's SSL certificate. You
                            can also pass the path to a CA_BUNDLE file for private
                            certs. You can also set the REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE
                            environment variable.
      --proxy PROXY         String mapping protocol to the URL of the proxy (e.g.
                            http:foo.bar:3128).
      --allow-redirects     Set this flag if full redirects are allowed (e.g. re-
                            POST-ing of data at new ``Location``)
      --timeout TIMEOUT     Float describes the timeout of the request (Use
                            socket.setdefaulttimeout() as fallback).

Contributors
------------

`View contributors on GitHub <https://github.com/jkbr/httpie/contributors>`_.


Changelog
---------

* `New in development version <https://github.com/jkbr/httpie/compare/0.1.6...master>`_
* `0.1.6 <https://github.com/jkbr/httpie/compare/0.1.4...0.1.6>`_ (2012-03-04)