How do I POST JSON data with cURL?

Question

I use Ubuntu and installed cURL on it. I want to test my Spring REST application with cURL. I wrote my POST code at the Java side. However, I want to test it with cURL. I am

Answer 1

You need to set your content-type to application/json. But -d sends the Content-Type application/x-www-form-urlencoded, which is not accepted on Spring's side.

Looking at the curl man page, I think you can use -H:

-H "Content-Type: application/json"

Full example:

curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --request POST \
  --data '{"username":"xyz","password":"xyz"}' \
  http://localhost:3000/api/login

(-H is short for --header, -d for --data)

Note that -request POST is optional if you use -d, as the -d flag implies a POST request.

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On Windows, things are slightly different. See the comment thread.