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I am trying to create a gist from bash, and I have tried many versions scripts I could get, but none are working.

This seems like a correct one, but it does not work also. 

curl -X POST -d '{"public":true,"files":{"test.txt":{"content":"String file contents"}}}' https://api.github.com/gists

I have a test.txt file with content I would like to create the gist, but it won't work. It says, invalid email, if I try to add -u USER or -u USER:PASS it still won't work saying "message": "Problems parsing JSON", ..

I don't know what is wrong. the documentation does not provide much except for this line:

POST /gists as you can see, I am passing the test.txt file.

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7 Answers 7

Reset to default
34

Recently GitHub CLI released. So you can now use it instead.

Just install it to your system (https://github.com/cli/cli#installation)

The authenticate (it's pretty simple)

gh auth login

After you logged in you can simply create a new gist by:

gh gist create -d "my test gist" -f some_local_file.txt  test_gist

For more details you can use help:

gh <command> <subcommand> --help
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5 Comments

To use it on NixOS or with the Nix package manager, use nix-shell -p github-cli.
@Nickolay Kondratenko I am trying to push new local file into gist but its giving me an error failed to collect files for posting: failed to read file test_gist: open test_gist: no such file or directory gh gist create -d "Snwflake-Queries" -f Snflk_Query.sql test_gist
@Karthik that's because test_gist file doesn't exist. Your command should be the following gh gist create -d "Snwflake-Queries" Snflk_Query.sql
@Karthik from help: -f, --filename string Provide a filename to be used when reading from STDIN
@NickolayKondratenko Thanks a lot . Whats the command to overwrite the same file with new changes
15

I've just tried

curl -X POST -d '{"public":true,"files":{"test.txt":{"content":"String file contents"}}}' -u mgarciaisaia:mypassword https://api.github.com/gists

and it worked: https://gist.github.com/mgarciaisaia/fa51238073eb2cf508aa

I don't see any problem in your command.

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6 Comments

btw: I have been trying to replace the test.txt and the String file.. with variables, but being inside single quotes, it does not work. Do you have any idea how to pass a variable inside single quotes?
But, how can we gist file.cpp snippet using that?
Now it says "message": "Not Found", "documentation_url": "developer.github.com/v3"
stackoverflow.com/a/64025613/9130688 response is valid for 2020
@DimitriKopriwa you'd need to read the file's content into a variable, and include that in the payload. That would imply changing the quotes and escaping, too. Maybe there's a new endpoint now?
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15

This question is old, so I am not sure it is still relevant.

On Ubuntu (at least on 18.04), you can try the gist package, which will install the gist-paste command that you can use (given you have a git account already) as below:

1) Get a gist OAuth2 token (it will create a ~/.gist file with the token). You have to do it once only:

$ gist-paste --login

Then, you can send your files, for instance:

$ gist-paste your-file.txt
$ cat .emacs.d/init.el | gist-paste -t el

There are many options: You can send file type/description (as above second example), delete gists, open gist in browser, etc... See gist-paste(1) or try gist-paste --help.

If you already have a gist token, you don't need to run gist-paste --login, just copy your ~/.gitconfig's oauth-token to ~/.gist. For example, if you have in ~/.gitconfig:

[github]
    oauth-token = foobar123

Just create a ~/.gist file with one line containing "foobar123".

[Edit] If your distribution does not provide the package, the project page is: https://github.com/defunkt/gist

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1 Comment

Confirmed to work on Ubuntu 16.04 but I just did gist finename.txt
4

I've just started using http://defunkt.io/gist, it makes things pretty simple:

# upload string to file
gist -f test.txt <<< "hello string"

# upload a file
gist test.txt
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2 Comments

This is amazing! To install it use sudo gem install gist and then gist --login and put the 8 digit code into github.com. To write multiple lines just type gist and exit after several lines with CTRL-D.
Or, if one is on NixOS or using Nix as a package manager, use nix-shell -p gist.
3

Have the same desire I found https://www.npmjs.com/package/gistup and fork the repository to https://github.com/CrandellWS/mkg because the developer did not want to support Windows which was the operating system being used at the time. So I reworked the npm package to work on windows as well as linux and apple...

Full source is available on GitHub: https://github.com/CrandellWS/mkg

Installation is simple with npm

npm install -g mkg

Use is discribed on the npmjs package page: https://www.npmjs.com/package/gistup

Once installed simply cd to which every directory you want to make a gist from...(remeber there are no subfolders with Gists)

and run the command:

mkg

and it will open your new gist in a broswer...additionally you will be able to control it like a normal git from there... just no subfolders...

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Comments

3

As of September 2020, creating gists is one of the features of GitHub's official command line tool gh.

E.g., on MacOS:

brew install gh
gh auth login  # Follow steps.
gh gist create myfile.txt  # Creates a private gist.

More options are available. gh gist create --help gives:

Create a new GitHub gist with given contents.

Gists can be created from one or multiple files. Alternatively, pass "-" as
file name to read from standard input.

By default, gists are private; use '--public' to make publicly listed ones.


USAGE
  gh gist create [<filename>... | -] [flags]

FLAGS
  -d, --desc string       A description for this gist
  -f, --filename string   Provide a filename to be used when reading from STDIN
  -p, --public            List the gist publicly (default: private)

INHERITED FLAGS
  --help   Show help for command

EXAMPLES
  # publish file 'hello.py' as a public gist
  $ gh gist create --public hello.py

  # create a gist with a description
  $ gh gist create hello.py -d "my Hello-World program in Python"

  # create a gist containing several files
  $ gh gist create hello.py world.py cool.txt

  # read from standard input to create a gist
  $ gh gist create -

  # create a gist from output piped from another command
  $ cat cool.txt | gh gist create

LEARN MORE
  Use 'gh <command> <subcommand> --help' for more information about a command.
  Read the manual at https://cli.github.com/manual
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2 Comments

If i want to udpate the existing file in the gist , whats the command using gh
Use gh gist edit {<gist ID> | <gist URL>} -f <filename>
0

You didn't post your system info so I'm using mine.

Install:

install: winget install --id GitHub.cli

Note: you must launch a new cli or close and restart your cli after installing so that your cli knows that the path is changed.

upgrade: winget upgrade --id GitHub.cli

public: gh gist create --public hello.py

private:gh gist create hello.py

You'll get a url, like this: Simple and effective, the url is like 4dad2955bffb6443792b385a972063c

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1 Comment

Please see Why should I not upload images of code/data/errors?. That image could be a copy-paste of terminal text.

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