HTTPie (pronounced aitch-tee-tee-pie) is a command line HTTP client.
Its goal is to make CLI interaction with web services as human-friendly
as possible. It provides a simple http command that allows for sending
arbitrary HTTP requests using a simple and natural syntax, and displays
colorized output. HTTPie can be used for testing, debugging, and
generally interacting with HTTP servers.
Contents
- 1 Main features
- 2 Installation
- 3 Usage
- 4 HTTP method
- 5 Request URL
- 6 Request items
- 7 JSON
- 8 Forms
- 9 HTTP headers
- 10 Authentication
- 11 HTTP redirects
- 12 Proxies
- 13 HTTPS
- 14 Output options
- 15 Redirected Input
- 16 Terminal output
- 17 Redirected output
- 18 Download mode
- 19 Streamed responses
- 20 Sessions
- 21 Config
- 22 Scripting
- 23 Meta
- Expressive and intuitive syntax
- Formatted and colorized terminal output
- Built-in JSON support
- Forms and file uploads
- HTTPS, proxies, and authentication
- Arbitrary request data
- Custom headers
- Persistent sessions
- Wget-like downloads
- Python 2.6, 2.7 and 3.x support
- Linux, Mac OS X and Windows support
- Plugins
- Documentation
- Test coverage
On Mac OS X, HTTPie can be installed via Homebrew (recommended):
$ brew install httpieA MacPorts port is also available:
$ port install httpieMost Linux distributions provide a package that can be installed using the system package manager, e.g.:
# Debian-based distributions such as Ubuntu:
$ apt-get install httpie
# RPM-based distributions:
$ yum install httpie
# Arch Linux
$ pacman -S httpieA universal installation method (that works on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, …, and provides the latest version) is to use pip:
# Make sure we have an up-to-date version of pip and setuptools:
$ pip install --upgrade pip setuptools
$ pip install --upgrade httpie(If pip installation fails for some reason, you can try
easy_install httpie as a fallback.)
The latest development version can be installed directly from GitHub:
# Mac OS X via Homebrew
$ brew install httpie --HEAD
# Universal
$ pip install --upgrade https://github.com/jkbrzt/httpie/archive/master.tar.gzAlthough Python 2.6 and 2.7 are supported as well, it is recommended to install
HTTPie against the latest Python 3.x whenever possible. That will ensure that
some of the newer HTTP features, such as SNI (Server Name Indication),
work out of the box.
Python 3 is the default for Homebrew installations starting with version 0.9.4.
To see which version HTTPie uses, run http --debug.
Hello World:
$ http httpie.orgSynopsis:
$ http [flags] [METHOD] URL [ITEM [ITEM]]See also http --help.
Custom HTTP method, HTTP headers and JSON data:
$ http PUT example.org X-API-Token:123 name=JohnSubmitting forms:
$ http -f POST example.org hello=WorldSee the request that is being sent using one of the output options:
$ http -v example.orgUse Github API to post a comment on an issue with authentication:
$ http -a USERNAME POST https://api.github.com/repos/jkbrzt/httpie/issues/83/comments body='HTTPie is awesome! :heart:'Upload a file using redirected input:
$ http example.org < file.jsonDownload a file and save it via redirected output:
$ http example.org/file > fileDownload a file wget style:
$ http --download example.org/fileUse named sessions to make certain aspects or the communication persistent between requests to the same host:
$ http --session=logged-in -a username:password httpbin.org/get API-Key:123
$ http --session=logged-in httpbin.org/headersSet a custom Host header to work around missing DNS records:
$ http localhost:8000 Host:example.comWhat follows is a detailed documentation. It covers the command syntax, advanced usage, and also features additional examples.
The name of the HTTP method comes right before the URL argument:
$ http DELETE example.org/todos/7Which looks similar to the actual Request-Line that is sent:
DELETE /todos/7 HTTP/1.1When the METHOD argument is omitted from the command, HTTPie defaults to
either GET (with no request data) or POST (with request data).
The only information HTTPie needs to perform a request is a URL.
The default scheme is, somewhat unsurprisingly, http://,
and can be omitted from the argument – http example.org works just fine.
Additionally, curl-like shorthand for localhost is supported.
This means that, for example :3000 would expand to http://localhost:3000
If the port is omitted, then port 80 is assumed.
$ http :/fooGET /foo HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost$ http :3000/barGET /bar HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:3000$ http :GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhostIf you find yourself manually constructing URLs with querystring parameters
on the terminal, you may appreciate the param==value syntax for appending
URL parameters. With that, you don't have to worry about escaping the &
separators for you shell. Also, special characters in parameter values,
will also automatically escaped (HTTPie otherwise expects the URL to be
already escaped). To search for HTTPie logo on Google Images you could use
this command:
$ http www.google.com search=='HTTPie logo' tbm==ischGET /?search=HTTPie+logo&tbm=isch HTTP/1.1You can use the --default-scheme <URL_SCHEME> option to create
shortcuts for other protocols than HTTP:
$ alias https='http --default-scheme=https'There are a few different request item types that provide a convenient mechanism for specifying HTTP headers, simple JSON and form data, files, and URL parameters.
They are key/value pairs specified after the URL. All have in
common that they become part of the actual request that is sent and that
their type is distinguished only by the separator used:
:, =, :=, ==, @, =@, and :=@. The ones with an
@ expect a file path as value.
| Item Type | Description |
|---|---|
HTTP Headers
Name:Value |
Arbitrary HTTP header, e.g. X-API-Token:123. |
URL parameters
name==value |
Appends the given name/value pair as a query
string parameter to the URL.
The == separator is used. |
Data Fields
field=value,
[email protected] |
Request data fields to be serialized as a JSON
object (default), or to be form-encoded
(--form, -f). |
Raw JSON fields
field:=json,
field:[email protected] |
Useful when sending JSON and one or
more fields need to be a Boolean, Number,
nested Object, or an Array, e.g.,
meals:='["ham","spam"]' or pies:=[1,2,3]
(note the quotes). |
Form File Fields
field@/dir/file |
Only available with --form, -f.
For example screenshot@~/Pictures/img.png.
The presence of a file field results
in a multipart/form-data request. |
You can use \ to escape characters that shouldn't be used as separators
(or parts thereof). For instance, foo\==bar will become a data key/value
pair (foo= and bar) instead of a URL parameter.
Often it is necessary to quote the values, e.g. foo='bar baz'.
If any of the field names or headers starts with a minus
(e.g., -fieldname), you need to place all such items after the special
token -- to prevent confusion with --arguments:
$ http httpbin.org/post -- -name-starting-with-dash=foo --Weird-Header:barPOST /post HTTP/1.1
--Weird-Header: bar
{
"-name-starting-with-dash": "value"
}Note that data fields aren't the only way to specify request data: Redirected input allows for passing arbitrary data to be sent with the request.
JSON is the lingua franca of modern web services and it is also the implicit content type HTTPie by default uses:
If your command includes some data items, they are serialized as a JSON object by default. HTTPie also automatically sets the following headers, both of which can be overwritten:
Content-Type |
application/json |
Accept |
application/json, */* |
You can use --json, -j to explicitly set Accept
to application/json regardless of whether you are sending data
(it's a shortcut for setting the header via the usual header notation –
http url Accept:'application/json, */*'). Additionally,
HTTPie will try to detect JSON responses even when the
Content-Type is incorrectly text/plain or unknown.
Simple example:
$ http PUT example.org name=John [email protected]PUT / HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json, */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Content-Type: application/json
Host: example.org
{
"name": "John",
"email": "[email protected]"
}Non-string fields use the := separator, which allows you to embed raw JSON
into the resulting object. Text and raw JSON files can also be embedded into
fields using =@ and :=@:
$ http PUT api.example.com/person/1 \
name=John \
age:=29 married:=false hobbies:='["http", "pies"]' \ # Raw JSON
[email protected] \ # Embed text file
bookmarks:[email protected] # Embed JSON filePUT /person/1 HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json, */*
Content-Type: application/json
Host: api.example.com
{
"age": 29,
"hobbies": [
"http",
"pies"
],
"description": "John is a nice guy who likes pies.",
"married": false,
"name": "John",
"bookmarks": {
"HTTPie": "http://httpie.org",
}
}Send JSON data stored in a file (see redirected input for more examples):
$ http POST api.example.com/person/1 < person.jsonSubmitting forms is very similar to sending JSON requests. Often the only
difference is in adding the --form, -f option, which ensures that
data fields are serialized as, and Content-Type is set to,
application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8.
It is possible to make form data the implicit content type instead of JSON via the config file.
$ http --form POST api.example.org/person/1 name='John Smith'POST /person/1 HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8
name=John+SmithIf one or more file fields is present, the serialization and content type is
multipart/form-data:
$ http -f POST example.com/jobs name='John Smith' cv@~/Documents/cv.pdfThe request above is the same as if the following HTML form were submitted:
<form enctype="multipart/form-data" method="post" action="http://example.com/jobs">
<input type="text" name="name" />
<input type="file" name="cv" />
</form>Note that @ is used to simulate a file upload form field, whereas
=@ just embeds the file content as a regular text field value.
To set custom headers you can use the Header:Value notation:
$ http example.org User-Agent:Bacon/1.0 'Cookie:valued-visitor=yes;foo=bar' \
X-Foo:Bar Referer:http://httpie.org/GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Cookie: valued-visitor=yes;foo=bar
Host: example.org
Referer: http://httpie.org/
User-Agent: Bacon/1.0
X-Foo: BarThere are a couple of default headers that HTTPie sets:
GET / HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
User-Agent: HTTPie/<version>
Host: <taken-from-URL>Any of the default headers can be overwritten and some of them unset.
To unset a header that has already been specified (such a one of the default
headers), use Header::
$ http httpbin.org/headers Accept: User-Agent:To send a header with an empty value, use Header;:
$ http httpbin.org/headers 'Header;'The currently supported authentication schemes are Basic and Digest (see auth plugins for more). There are two flags that control authentication:
--auth, -a |
Pass a username:password pair as
the argument. Or, if you only specify a username
(-a username), you'll be prompted for
the password before the request is sent.
To send an empty password, pass username:.
The username:password@hostname URL syntax is
supported as well (but credentials passed via -a
have higher priority). |
--auth-type, -A |
Specify the auth mechanism. Possible values are
basic and digest. The default value is
basic so it can often be omitted. |
Basic auth:
$ http -a username:password example.orgDigest auth:
$ http -A digest -a username:password example.orgWith password prompt:
$ http -a username example.orgAuthorization information from your ~/.netrc file is honored as well:
$ cat ~/.netrc
machine httpbin.org
login httpie
password test
$ http httpbin.org/basic-auth/httpie/test
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
[...]- httpie-oauth: OAuth
- httpie-hmac-auth: HMAC
- httpie-ntlm: NTLM (NT LAN Manager)
- httpie-negotiate: SPNEGO (GSS Negotiate)
- requests-hawk: Hawk
- httpie-api-auth: ApiAuth
- httpie-edgegrid: EdgeGrid
- httpie-jwt-auth: JWTAuth (JSON Web Tokens)
By default, HTTP redirects are not followed and only the first
response is shown. To instruct HTTPie to follow the Location header of
30x responses and show the final response instead, use the --follow, -F option.
If you additionally wish to see the intermediary requests/responses,
then use the --all option as well.
To change the default limit of maximum 30 redirects, use the
--max-redirects=<limit> option.
$ http --follow --all --max-redirects=5 httpbin.org/redirect/3You can specify proxies to be used through the --proxy argument for each
protocol (which is included in the value in case of redirects across protocols):
$ http --proxy=http:http://10.10.1.10:3128 --proxy=https:https://10.10.1.10:1080 example.orgWith Basic authentication:
$ http --proxy=http:http://user:[email protected]:3128 example.orgYou can also configure proxies by environment variables HTTP_PROXY and
HTTPS_PROXY, and the underlying Requests library will pick them up as well.
If you want to disable proxies configured through the environment variables for
certain hosts, you can specify them in NO_PROXY.
In your ~/.bash_profile:
export HTTP_PROXY=http://10.10.1.10:3128
export HTTPS_PROXY=https://10.10.1.10:1080
export NO_PROXY=localhost,example.comTo enable SOCKS proxy support please install requests[socks] using pip:
$ pip install -U requests[socks]Usage is the same as for other types of proxies:
$ http --proxy=http:socks5://user:pass@host:port --proxy=https:socks5://user:pass@host:port example.orgTo skip the host's SSL certificate verification, you can pass
--verify=no (default is yes):
$ http --verify=no https://example.orgYou can also use --verify=<CA_BUNDLE_PATH> to set a custom CA bundle
path:
$ http --verify=/ssl/custom_ca_bundle https://example.orgThe path can also be configured via the environment variable
REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE (picked up by the underlying python-requests library):
$ REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE=/ssl/custom_ca_bundle http https://example.orgTo use a client side certificate for the SSL communication, you can pass
the path of the cert file with --cert:
$ http --cert=client.pem https://example.orgIf the private key is not contained in the cert file you may pass the
path of the key file with --cert-key:
$ http --cert=client.crt --cert-key=client.key https://example.orgUse the --ssl=<PROTOCOL> to specify the desired protocol version to use.
This will default to SSL v2.3 which will negotiate the highest protocol that both
the server and your installation of OpenSSL support. The available protocols
are ssl2.3, ssl3, tls1, tls1.1, tls1.2. (The actually
available set of protocols may vary depending on your OpenSSL installation.)
# Specify the vulnerable SSL v3 protocol to talk to an outdated server:
$ http --ssl=ssl3 https://vulnerable.example.orgIf you use HTTPie with Python version lower than 2.7.9
(can be verified with http --debug) and need to talk to servers that
use SNI (Server Name Indication) you need to install some additional
dependencies:
$ pip install --upgrade pyopenssl pyasn1 ndg-httpsclientYou can use the following command to test SNI support:
$ http https://sni.velox.chBy default, HTTPie only outputs the final response and the whole response message is printed (headers as well as the body).
You can control what should be printed via several options:
--headers, -h |
Only the response headers are printed. |
--body, -b |
Only the response body is printed. |
--verbose, -v |
Print the whole HTTP exchange (request and response).
This option also enables --all (see bellow). |
--print, -p |
Selects parts of the HTTP exchange. |
--verbose can often be useful for debugging the request and generating
documentation examples:
$ http --verbose PUT httpbin.org/put hello=world
PUT /put HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json, */*
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Content-Type: application/json
Host: httpbin.org
User-Agent: HTTPie/0.2.7dev
{
"hello": "world"
}
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: keep-alive
Content-Length: 477
Content-Type: application/json
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2012 00:25:23 GMT
Server: gunicorn/0.13.4
{
[…]
}All the other options are just a shortcut for --print, -p.
It accepts a string of characters each of which represents a specific part of
the HTTP exchange:
| Character | Stands for |
|---|---|
H |
request headers |
B |
request body |
h |
response headers |
b |
response body |
Print request and response headers:
$ http --print=Hh PUT httpbin.org/put hello=worldTo see all the HTTP communication, i.e. the final request/response as
well as any possible intermediary requests/responses, use the --all
option. The intermediary HTTP communication include followed redirects
(with --follow), the first unauthorized request when HTTP digest
authentication is used (--auth=digest), etc.
# Include all responses that lead to the final one:
$ http --all --follow httpbin.org/redirect/3The intermediary requests/response are by default formatted according to
--print, -p (and its shortcuts described above). If you'd like to change
that, use the --history-print, -P option. It takes the same
arguments as --print, -p but applies to the intermediary requests only.
# Print the intermediary requests/responses differently than the final one:
$ http -A digest -a foo:bar --all -p Hh -P H httpbin.org/digest-auth/auth/foo/barAs an optimization, the response body is downloaded from the server
only if it's part of the output. This is similar to performing a HEAD
request, except that it applies to any HTTP method you use.
Let's say that there is an API that returns the whole resource when it is updated, but you are only interested in the response headers to see the status code after an update:
$ http --headers PATCH example.org/Really-Huge-Resource name='New Name'Since we are only printing the HTTP headers here, the connection to the server is closed as soon as all the response headers have been received. Therefore, bandwidth and time isn't wasted downloading the body which you don't care about.
The response headers are downloaded always, even if they are not part of the output
A universal method for passing request data is through redirected stdin
(standard input). Such data is buffered and then with no further processing
used as the request body. There are multiple useful ways to use piping:
Redirect from a file:
$ http PUT example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123 < person.jsonOr the output of another program:
$ grep '401 Unauthorized' /var/log/httpd/error_log | http POST example.org/intrudersYou can use echo for simple data:
$ echo '{"name": "John"}' | http PATCH example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123You can even pipe web services together using HTTPie:
$ http GET https://api.github.com/repos/jkbrzt/httpie | http POST httpbin.org/postYou can use cat to enter multiline data on the terminal:
$ cat | http POST example.com
<paste>
^D$ cat | http POST example.com/todos Content-Type:text/plain
- buy milk
- call parents
^DOn OS X, you can send the contents of the clipboard with pbpaste:
$ pbpaste | http PUT example.comPassing data through stdin cannot be combined with data fields specified
on the command line:
$ echo 'data' | http POST example.org more=data # This is invalidTo prevent HTTPie from reading stdin data you can use the
--ignore-stdin option.
An alternative to redirected stdin is specifying a filename (as
@/path/to/file) whose content is used as if it came from stdin.
It has the advantage that the Content-Type
header is automatically set to the appropriate value based on the
filename extension. For example, the following request sends the
verbatim contents of that XML file with Content-Type: application/xml:
$ http PUT httpbin.org/put @/data/file.xmlHTTPie does several things by default in order to make its terminal output easy to read.
Syntax highlighting is applied to HTTP headers and bodies (where it makes
sense). You can choose your preferred color scheme via the --style option
if you don't like the default one (see $ http --help for the possible
values).
Also, the following formatting is applied:
- HTTP headers are sorted by name.
- JSON data is indented, sorted by keys, and unicode escapes are converted to the characters they represent.
One of these options can be used to control output processing:
--pretty=all |
Apply both colors and formatting. Default for terminal output. |
--pretty=colors |
Apply colors. |
--pretty=format |
Apply formatting. |
--pretty=none |
Disables output processing. Default for redirected output. |
Binary data is suppressed for terminal output, which makes it safe to perform requests to URLs that send back binary data. Binary data is suppressed also in redirected, but prettified output. The connection is closed as soon as we know that the response body is binary,
$ http example.org/Movie.movYou will nearly instantly see something like this:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Type: video/quicktime
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
+-----------------------------------------+
| NOTE: binary data not shown in terminal |
+-----------------------------------------+HTTPie uses different defaults for redirected output than for terminal output:
- Formatting and colors aren't applied (unless
--prettyis specified). - Only the response body is printed (unless one of the output options is set).
- Also, binary data isn't suppressed.
The reason is to make piping HTTPie's output to another programs and downloading files work with no extra flags. Most of the time, only the raw response body is of an interest when the output is redirected.
Download a file:
$ http example.org/Movie.mov > Movie.movDownload an image of Octocat, resize it using ImageMagick, upload it elsewhere:
$ http octodex.github.com/images/original.jpg | convert - -resize 25% - | http example.org/OctocatsForce colorizing and formatting, and show both the request and the response in
less pager:
$ http --pretty=all --verbose example.org | less -RThe -R flag tells less to interpret color escape sequences included
HTTPie`s output.
You can create a shortcut for invoking HTTPie with colorized and paged output
by adding the following to your ~/.bash_profile:
function httpless {
# `httpless example.org'
http --pretty=all --print=hb "$@" | less -R;
}HTTPie features a download mode in which it acts similarly to wget.
When enabled using the --download, -d flag, response headers are printed to
the terminal (stderr), and a progress bar is shown while the response body
is being saved to a file.
$ http --download https://github.com/jkbrzt/httpie/archive/master.tar.gzHTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=httpie-master.tar.gz
Content-Length: 257336
Content-Type: application/x-gzip
Downloading 251.30 kB to "httpie-master.tar.gz"
Done. 251.30 kB in 2.73862s (91.76 kB/s)If not provided via --output, -o, the output filename will be determined
from Content-Disposition (if available), or from the URL and
Content-Type. If the guessed filename already exists, HTTPie adds a unique
suffix to it.
You can also redirect the response body to another program while the response headers and progress are still shown in the terminal:
$ http -d https://github.com/jkbrzt/httpie/archive/master.tar.gz | tar zxf -If --output, -o is specified, you can resume a partial download using the
--continue, -c option. This only works with servers that support
Range requests and 206 Partial Content responses. If the server doesn't
support that, the whole file will simply be downloaded:
$ http -dco file.zip example.org/fileOther notes:
- The
--downloadoption only changes how the response body is treated. - You can still set custom headers, use sessions,
--verbose, -v, etc. --downloadalways implies--follow(redirects are followed).- HTTPie exits with status code
1(error) if the body hasn't been fully downloaded. Accept-Encodingcannot be set with--download.
Responses are downloaded and printed in chunks, which allows for streaming and large file downloads without using too much RAM. However, when colors and formatting is applied, the whole response is buffered and only then processed at once.
You can use the --stream, -S flag to make two things happen:
- The output is flushed in much smaller chunks without any buffering,
which makes HTTPie behave kind of like
tail -ffor URLs. - Streaming becomes enabled even when the output is prettified: It will be applied to each line of the response and flushed immediately. This makes it possible to have a nice output for long-lived requests, such as one to the Twitter streaming API.
Prettified streamed response:
$ http --stream -f -a YOUR-TWITTER-NAME https://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/filter.json track='Justin Bieber'Streamed output by small chunks alá tail -f:
# Send each new tweet (JSON object) mentioning "Apple" to another
# server as soon as it arrives from the Twitter streaming API:
$ http --stream -f -a YOUR-TWITTER-NAME https://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/filter.json track=Apple \
| while read tweet; do echo "$tweet" | http POST example.org/tweets ; doneBy default, every request is completely independent of any previous ones.
HTTPie also supports persistent sessions, where custom headers (except for the
ones starting with Content- or If-), authorization, and cookies
(manually specified or sent by the server) persist between requests
to the same host.
Create a new session named user1 for example.org:
$ http --session=user1 -a user1:password example.org X-Foo:BarNow you can refer to the session by its name, and the previously used authorization and HTTP headers will automatically be set:
$ http --session=user1 example.orgTo create or reuse a different session, simple specify a different name:
$ http --session=user2 -a user2:password example.org X-Bar:FooTo use a session without updating it from the request/response exchange
once it is created, specify the session name via
--session-read-only=SESSION_NAME instead.
Named sessions' data is stored in JSON files in the directory
~/.httpie/sessions/<host>/<name>.json
(%APPDATA%\httpie\sessions\<host>\<name>.json on Windows).
Instead of a name, you can also directly specify a path to a session file. This allows for sessions to be re-used across multiple hosts:
$ http --session=/tmp/session.json example.org
$ http --session=/tmp/session.json admin.example.org
$ http --session=~/.httpie/sessions/another.example.org/test.json example.org
$ http --session-read-only=/tmp/session.json example.orgWarning: All session data, including credentials, cookie data, and custom headers are stored in plain text.
Note that session files can also be created and edited manually in a text editor; they are plain JSON.
See also Config.
HTTPie uses a simple JSON config file.
The default location of the configuration file is ~/.httpie/config.json
(or %APPDATA%\httpie\config.json on Windows). The config directory
location can be changed by setting the HTTPIE_CONFIG_DIR
environment variable. To view the exact location run http --debug.
The JSON file contains an object with the following keys:
An Array (by default empty) of default options that should be applied to
every invocation of HTTPie.
For instance, you can use this option to change the default style and output
options: "default_options": ["--style=fruity", "--body"] Another useful
default option could be "--session=default" to make HTTPie always
use sessions (one named default will automatically be used).
Or you could change the implicit request content type from JSON to form by
adding --form to the list.
HTTPie automatically stores some of its metadata here. Please do not change.
Default options from the config file, or specified any other way,
can be unset for a particular invocation via --no-OPTION arguments passed
on the command line (e.g., --no-style or --no-session).
When using HTTPie from shell scripts, it can be handy to set the
--check-status flag. It instructs HTTPie to exit with an error if the
HTTP status is one of 3xx, 4xx, or 5xx. The exit status will
be 3 (unless --follow is set), 4, or 5,
respectively.
The --ignore-stdin option prevents HTTPie from reading data from stdin,
which is usually not desirable during non-interactive invocations.
Also, the --timeout option allows to overwrite the default 30s timeout:
#!/bin/bash
if http --check-status --ignore-stdin --timeout=2.5 HEAD example.org/health &> /dev/null; then
echo 'OK!'
else
case $? in
2) echo 'Request timed out!' ;;
3) echo 'Unexpected HTTP 3xx Redirection!' ;;
4) echo 'HTTP 4xx Client Error!' ;;
5) echo 'HTTP 5xx Server Error!' ;;
6) echo 'Exceeded --max-redirects=<n> redirects!' ;;
*) echo 'Other Error!' ;;
esac
fiThe syntax of the command arguments closely corresponds to the actual HTTP requests sent over the wire. It has the advantage that it's easy to remember and read. It is often possible to translate an HTTP request to an HTTPie argument list just by inlining the request elements. For example, compare this HTTP request:
POST /collection HTTP/1.1
X-API-Key: 123
User-Agent: Bacon/1.0
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
name=value&name2=value2with the HTTPie command that sends it:
$ http -f POST example.org/collection \
X-API-Key:123 \
User-Agent:Bacon/1.0 \
name=value \
name2=value2Notice that both the order of elements and the syntax is very similar,
and that only a small portion of the command is used to control HTTPie and
doesn't directly correspond to any part of the request (here it's only -f
asking HTTPie to send a form request).
The two modes, --pretty=all (default for terminal) and --pretty=none
(default for redirected output), allow for both user-friendly interactive use
and usage from scripts, where HTTPie serves as a generic HTTP client.
As HTTPie is still under heavy development, the existing command line
syntax and some of the --OPTIONS may change slightly before
HTTPie reaches its final version 1.0. All changes are recorded in the
change log.
Please use the following support channels:
- GitHub issues for bug reports and feature requests.
- Our Gitter chat room to ask questions, discuss features, and for general discussion.
- StackOverflow to ask questions (please make sure to use the httpie tag).
- You can also tweet directly to @jkbrzt.
- jq — CLI JSON processor that works great in conjunction with HTTPie
- http-prompt — interactive shell for HTTPie featuring autocomplete and command syntax highlighting
See CONTRIBUTING.
See CHANGELOG.
BSD-3-Clause: LICENSE.
Jakub Roztocil (@jkbrzt) created HTTPie and these fine people have contributed.