How do I POST JSON data with cURL?

Question

I use Ubuntu and installed cURL on it. I want to test my Spring REST application with cURL. I wrote my POST code at the Java side. However, I want to test it with cURL. I am trying to post a JSON data. Example data is like this:

{"value":"30","type":"Tip 3","targetModule":"Target 3","configurationGroup":null,"name":"Configuration Deneme 3","description":null,"identity":"Configuration Deneme 3","version":0,"systemId":3,"active":true} 

I use this command:

curl -i \     -H "Accept: application/json" \     -H "X-HTTP-Method-Override: PUT" \     -X POST -d "value":"30","type":"Tip 3","targetModule":"Target 3","configurationGroup":null,"name":"Configuration Deneme 3","description":null,"identity":"Configuration Deneme 3","version":0,"systemId":3,"active":true \     http://localhost:8080/xx/xxx/xxxx 

It returns this error:

HTTP/1.1 415 Unsupported Media Type Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 1051 Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 08:50:17 GMT 

The error description is this:

The server refused this request because the request entity is in a format not supported by the requested resource for the requested method ().

Tomcat log: "POST /ui/webapp/conf/clear HTTP/1.1" 415 1051

What is the right format of the cURL command?

This is my Java side PUT code (I have tested GET and DELETE and they work):

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.PUT) public Configuration updateConfiguration(HttpServletResponse response, @RequestBody Configuration configuration) { //consider @Valid tag     configuration.setName("PUT worked");     //todo If error occurs response.sendError(HttpServletResponse.SC_NOT_FOUND);     return configuration; } 

Answer 1

You need to set your content-type to application/json. But -d (or --data) sends the Content-Type application/x-www-form-urlencoded, which is not accepted on Spring's side.

Looking at the curl man page, I think you can use -H (or --header):

-H "Content-Type: application/json" 

Full example:

curl --header "Content-Type: application/json" \   --request POST \   --data '{"username":"xyz","password":"xyz"}' \   http://localhost:3000/api/login 

(-H is short for --header, -d for --data)

Note that -request POST is optional if you use -d, as the -d flag implies a POST request.

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On Windows, things are slightly different. See the comment thread.