BASH

Perform Authenticated API Request with curl

Discover how to use `curl` in Bash to make authenticated POST requests to web APIs, including sending JSON payloads and authentication headers.

#!/bin/bash

API_ENDPOINT="https://api.example.com/data"
AUTH_TOKEN="your_jwt_or_api_key"

JSON_PAYLOAD='{
  "name": "New Item",
  "value": 123
}'

RESPONSE=$(curl -s -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -d "$JSON_PAYLOAD" \
  "$API_ENDPOINT")

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "API Request Successful:"
  echo "$RESPONSE" | python -m json.tool # Pretty print JSON using Python
else
  echo "API Request Failed."
  echo "$RESPONSE"
fi

How it works: This script demonstrates how to send an authenticated POST request to an API endpoint using `curl`. It sets the `Content-Type` header to `application/json`, includes an `Authorization` header with a bearer token, and sends a JSON payload. The response is captured and then pretty-printed using Python's `json.tool` module, which is helpful for readability. This is frequently used for scripting interactions with RESTful APIs.

Perform Authenticated API Request with curl

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