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I am writing a shell script to post a JSON file to a URL.

The header is:

Content-Type: application/json
Accept: application/json
Account-Number: xxxxxxxx
Authorization: Basic eW91cl91c2VyX25hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQ=

The above JSON string is saved into a .JSON file and my curl command should process it and get the desired response. I use the following command but it does not process successfully: 

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d "data=@$f" https://abcdef.com/test/example/v1/

$f has the JSON file name.

I have the following questions as well:

  1. Should my header and the JSON string be in the same JSON file? If the header is present in a differnt file, what should be its extension? and how do I process that using curl command?
  2. Is there any specific handling I should do for special characters like {,",: etc?
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2 Answers 2

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5

You're not sending all the headers. I don't believe there's an option to read the desired headers from a file.

Since you're scripting in bash, I'd store all the options in a shell array for readability:

curl_opts=(
    -H "Content-Type: application/json"
    -H "Accept: application/json"
    -H "Account-Number: xxxxxxxx"
    -H "Authorization: Basic eW91cl91c2VyX25hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQ="
    -X POST 
    --data-binary "@$f"
)
curl "${curl_opts[@]}" https://abcdef.com/test/example/v1/
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10 Comments

FYI, this won't work. You can't post JSON like this with -d data=@file.
Thankyou for your response guys. I tried the --data -binary option and also put all the header contents, but still I get this error: "errors": "message": "The request failed authentication", "error_code": "API_001", "error_name": "Unauthenticated request" -- In JSON format. Can you please help? Here is my actual curl command: curl --data-binary "@$filename" -H "Content-Type:application/json" -H "Accept:application/json" -H "Account-Number:3283950684" -H "Authorization:Basic OTFiNDA0MjctYzJhNi00MGVmLTgzMzgtOWIzY2JjODE2N2E1OnhjNGJkZjNmMjVmMw==" -X POST digitalapi.auspost.com.au/test
So, the actual curl request is now succeeding. Now you have to properly encode the credential properly. auth=$(echo "username:password" | base64); header="Authorization: Basic $auth"
@satheeshv, please see my answer. You should use -u curl option instead of manually crafting your auth header.
Thanks glenn. The Authorization string I have given in the example is the base64 encoded string of the user:password. But still the authorization fails. So does it mean that the user:password could be wrong?
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Assuming you want to post your JSON data exactly as-is (without further processing), you should use --data-binary. If preserving content like newlines is not necessary, you can use -d/--data, but in the form -d @file, like this:

filename=file.json
curl http://httpbin.org/post --data-binary "@$filename" --user "name:password" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Accept: application/json' -H 'Account-Number: xxxxxxxx'

of course, after fixing all syntax errors you have in your JSON (like hanging commas, isolated single quotes, etc). Specifying data in form key=val (or key=@file), like you're trying, will not work (you can use it for form parameters with -F, though); see valid data part syntax in curl.

Note that when using --data-binary, default method is POST (so, no need to specify it with -X), but you'll have to specify the correct Content-Type.

Also, instead of manually calculating Authorization header for HTTP Basic Auth, just use the -u/--user <user:pass> option.

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