This section provides a comprehensive collection of examples for using HTTPie, a powerful command-line HTTP client. These examples cover various use cases, from simple GET requests to complex API interactions, demonstrating HTTPie's flexibility and ease of use.

Basic HTTP Requests

Learn how to perform fundamental HTTP operations like sending custom headers, submitting form data, and viewing request details.

# Custom HTTP method HTTP headers and JSON data:
http PUT example.org X-API-Token:123 name=John

# Submitting forms:
http -f POST example.org hello=World

# See the request that is being sent using one of the output options:
http -v example.org

API Interaction and Authentication

Explore examples of interacting with APIs, including authentication methods like basic and digest authentication, and using GitHub's API.

# Use 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!'

# Basic auth:
http -a username:password example.org

# Digest auth:
http --auth-type=digest -a username:password example.org

# With password prompt:
http -a username example.org

# Authorization 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

Data Handling and File Operations

Discover how to upload and download files, redirect input and output, and embed JSON data using HTTPie.

# Upload a file using redirected input:
http example.org < file.json

# Download a file and save it via redirected output:
http example.org/file > file

# Download a file wget style:
http --download example.org/file

# Send JSON data stored in a file:
http POST api.example.com/person/1 < person.json

# Regular Forms
http --form POST api.org/person/1 name='John Smith' email=john@example.org cv=@~/Documents/cv.txt

# File Upload Forms
# If 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.pdf

# Redirect from a file:
http PUT example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123 < person.json

# Or the output of another program:
grep '401 Unauthorized' /var/log/httpd/error_log | http POST example.org/intruders

# You can use echo for simple data:
echo '{"name": "John"}' | http PATCH example.com/person/1 X-API-Token:123

# 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.xml

# Download a file:
http example.org/Movie.mov > Movie.mov

# Download an image of Octocat, resize it using ImageMagick, upload it
# elsewhere:
http octodex.github.com/images/original.jpg | convert - -resize 25% -  | http example.org/Octocats

Advanced Features and Customization

Explore advanced HTTPie features such as session management, proxy configuration, SSL certificate handling, and output formatting.

# Use 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/headers

# Set a custom Host header to work around missing DNS records:
http localhost:8000 Host:example.com

# Simple JSON example:
http PUT example.org name=John email=john@example.com

# 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"]' description=@about-john.txt bookmarks:=@bookmarks.json

# 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/

# You 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.org

# With Basic authentication:
http --proxy=http:http://user:pass@10.10.1.10:3128 example.org

# To skip the HOST'S SSL CERTIFICATE VERIFICATION, you can pass
# --verify=no (default is yes):
http --verify=no https://example.org

# You can also use --verify=<CA_BUNDLE_PATH> to set a CUSTOM CA BUNDLE path:
http --verify=/ssl/custom_ca_bundle https://example.org

# To 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.org

# If 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.org

# 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).
  # --print, -p     Selects parts of the HTTP exchange.
http --verbose PUT httpbin.org/put hello=world

# Print request and response headers:
  # Character   Stands for
  # ----------- -------------------
  # H           Request headers.
  # B           Request body.
  # h           Response headers.
  # b           Response body.
http --print=Hh PUT httpbin.org/put hello=world

# 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'

# You can even pipe web services together using HTTPie:
http GET https://api.github.com/repos/jkbrzt/httpie | http POST httpbin.org/post

# You 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
    ^D

# On OS X, you can send the contents of the clipboard with pbpaste:
pbpaste | http PUT example.com

# Passing data through stdin cannot be combined with data fields specified
# on the command line:
echo 'data' | http POST example.org more=data   # This is invalid

# Force colorizing and formatting, and show both the request and the
# response in less pager:
http --pretty=all --verbose example.org | less -R

# 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/tarball/master

# 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/tarball/master |  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/file

# Prettified streamed response:
http --stream -f -a YOUR-TWITTER-NAME https://stream.twitter.com/1/statuses/filter.json track='Justin Bieber'

# 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 ; done

# Create a new session named user1 for example.org:
http --session=user1 -a user1:password example.org X-Foo:Bar

# Now 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.org

# To create or reuse a different session, simple specify a different name:
http --session=user2 -a user2:password example.org X-Bar:Foo

# 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.org

External Resources

• HTTPie Official Website
• MDN Web Docs: HTTP
• RFC 9110: HTTP Semantics