Getting Started with CURL

What is CURL

curl is a command used to send a request to a website from the terminal.
It helps us see the website response without using a browser.
We use it to test APIs and check if a site is working.

C:\Users\ranja> curl https://wttr.in

When you will run this command on your terminal you will be getting Weather

output :———

Security Warning: Script Execution Risk
Invoke-WebRequest parses the content of the web page. Script code in the web page might be run when the page is
parsed.
      RECOMMENDED ACTION:
      Use the -UseBasicParsing switch to avoid script code execution.

      Do you want to continue?

[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"): y


StatusCode        : 200
StatusDescription : OK
Content           : Weather report: New Delhi, India

                                    Haze
                       _ - _ - _ -  19 °C
                        _ - _ - _   ↖ 4 km/h

awContent        : HTTP/1.1 200 OK
                    Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
                    Content-Length: 8722
                    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
                    Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:37:36 GMT

                    Weather report: New Delhi, India

                                   ...
Forms             : {}
Headers           : {[Access-Control-Allow-Origin, *], [Content-Length, 8722], [Content-Type, text/plain;
                    charset=utf-8], [Date, Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:37:36 GMT]}
Images            : {}
InputFields       : {}
Links             : {}
ParsedHtml        : mshtml.HTMLDocumentClass
RawContentLength  : 8722

Why programmers need CURL

Programmer need CURL because of Through Curl we can directly talk to websites and APIs from the terminal

if a server is working and what response it gives.

Through this we can directly Excess data

Making your first request using curl

curl https://api.github.com/users/yourusername

Output :———-

 C:\Users\ranja> curl https://api.github.com/users/01Ranjan

Security Warning: Script Execution Risk
Invoke-WebRequest parses the content of the web page. Script code in the web page might be run when the page is
parsed.
      RECOMMENDED ACTION:
      Use the -UseBasicParsing switch to avoid script code execution.

      Do you want to continue?

[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "N"): y


StatusCode        : 200
StatusDescription : OK
Content           : {"login":"01Ranjan","id":174847980,"node_id":"U_kgDOCmv37A","avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubuse
                    rcontent.com/u/174847980?v=4","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/01Ranjan","html_
                    ur...
RawContent        : HTTP/1.1 200 OK
                    Vary: Accept,Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With
                    X-GitHub-Media-Type: github.v3; format=json
                    x-github-api-version-selected: 2022-11-28
                    Access-Control-Expose-Headers: ETag, Li...
Forms             : {}
Headers           : {[Vary, Accept,Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With], [X-GitHub-Media-Type, github.v3;
                    format=json], [x-github-api-version-selected, 2022-11-28], [Access-Control-Expose-Headers, ETag,
                    Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining,
                    X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes,
                    X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id,
                    Deprecation, Sunset]...}
Images            : {}
InputFields       : {}
Links             : {}
ParsedHtml        : mshtml.HTMLDocumentClass
RawContentLength  : 1184

Summary

This article provides an overview of the curl command, a useful tool for sending requests to websites and APIs directly from the terminal. It explains how curl can be used to test site responses and validate server functionality without a browser. The article includes examples of using curl to retrieve weather information and user data from GitHub, while highlighting security considerations when executing scripts in the terminal.