curl -F what does it mean? php instagram

Question

I'm trying to figure out what this means? I want to be able to post something to Instagram's API, but not sure what curl -F means? I tried searching it on google, but it's not giving me much. Maybe someone with this matter can shine some light?

Also, What is the best way to post to Instagram with this method? The documentation is asking

curl -F 'access_token=ACCESS-TOKEN' \
    https://api.instagram.com/v1/media/{media-id}/likes

Can someone explain this to me?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

From man curl:

   -F, --form <name=content>
          (HTTP) This lets curl emulate a filled-in form in
          which a user has pressed the submit button. This
          causes curl to POST data using the Content-Type
          multipart/form-data according to RFC 2388. This
          enables uploading of binary files etc. To force the
          'content' part to be a file, prefix the file name with
          an @ sign. To just get the content part from a file,
          prefix the file name with the symbol <. The difference
          between @ and < is then that @ makes a file get
          attached in the post as a file upload, while the <
          makes a text field and just get the contents for that
          text field from a file.

          Example, to send your password file to the server,
          where 'password' is the name of the form-field to
          which /etc/passwd will be the input:

          curl -F password=@/etc/passwd www.mypasswords.com

          To read content from stdin instead of a file, use - as
          the filename. This goes for both @ and < constructs.

          You can also tell curl what Content-Type to use by
          using 'type=', in a manner similar to:

          curl -F "[email protected];type=text/html" url.com

          or

          curl -F "name=daniel;type=text/foo" url.com

          You can also explicitly change the name field of a
          file upload part by setting filename=, like this:

          curl -F "file=@localfile;filename=nameinpost" url.com

          See further examples and details in the MANUAL.

          This option can be used multiple times.