Bash - send HTTP POST request with JSON body using curl

In this short article, we would like to show how to send HTTP POST request with JSON body/payload using curl under Bash.

Quick solution:

echo '{"name":"john"}' | curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @- http://localhost:80/path/to/rest/api

to untrusted HTTPS server:

echo '{"name":"john"}' | curl -k -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @- https://localhost:443/path/to/rest/api

Where:

• -k lets to request servers with untrusted certificates (e.g. localhost),
• -X POST indicates request method,
• -H "Content-Type: application/json" informs server API about sent content type,
• -d @- lets to use stdin and send them JSON data (-d @- is shortcut for --data-binary @-).

Alternative solution

We can send JSON payload from indicated file using:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/path/to/data.json http://localhost:80/path/to/rest/api

Where:

• -d @/path/to/data.json indicates a file that contains JSON to send inside the body of the POST request.

Example /path/to/data.json file content:

{
    "name": "john"
}