How to PUT a json object with an array using curl

Question

I have a series of data to enter into database. The user interface to enter the data isn't good for bulk entry, so I'm trying to formulate a command line equivalent. When I examine the network request of the UI in chrome, I see a PUT request of a json object. When I try to replicate the request

curl -H 'Accept: application/json' -X PUT '{"tags":["tag1","tag2"],"question":"Which band?","answers":[{"id":"a0","answer":"Answer1"},{"id":"a1","answer":"answer2"}]}' http://example.com/service` 

I get a error

curl: (3) [globbing] nested braces not supported at pos X

Where X is the character position of first "[".

How can I PUT a json object that includes an array?

Answer 1

Your command line should have a -d/--data inserted before the string you want to send in the PUT, and you want to set the Content-Type and not Accept.

curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X PUT -d '[JSON]' \      http://example.com/service 

Using the exact JSON data from the question, the full command line would become:

curl -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -X PUT \     -d '{"tags":["tag1","tag2"],          "question":"Which band?",          "answers":[{"id":"a0","answer":"Answer1"},                     {"id":"a1","answer":"answer2"}]}' \     http://example.com/service 

Note: JSON data wrapped only for readability, not valid for curl request.

Answer 2

Although the original post had other issues (i.e. the missing "-d"), the error message is more generic.

curl: (3) [globbing] nested braces not supported at pos X

This is because curly braces {} and square brackets [] are special globbing characters in curl. To turn this globbing off, use the "-g" option.

As an example, the following Solr facet query will fail without the "-g" to turn off curl globbing: curl -g 'http://localhost:8983/solr/query?json.facet={x:{terms:"myfield"}}'