curl/docs/cmdline-opts/variable.md

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c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, daniel@haxx.se, et al. SPDX-License-Identifier: curl Long: variable Arg: <[%]name=text/@file> Help: Set variable Category: curl Added: 8.3.0 Multi: append See-also:

• config Example:
• --variable name=smith $URL ---

--variable

Set a variable with name=content or name@file (where file can be stdin if set to a single dash (-)). The name is a case sensitive identifier that must consist of no other letters than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 or underscore. The specified content is then associated with this identifier.

Setting the same variable name again overwrites the old contents with the new.

The contents of a variable can be referenced in a later command line option when that option name is prefixed with --expand-, and the name is used as {{name}}.

--variable can import environment variables into the name space. Opt to either require the environment variable to be set or provide a default value for the variable in case it is not already set.

--variable %name imports the variable called name but exits with an error if that environment variable is not already set. To provide a default value if the environment variable is not set, use --variable %name=content or --variable %name@content. Note that on some systems - but not all - environment variables are case insensitive.

When expanding variables, curl supports a set of functions that can make the variable contents more convenient to use. You apply a function to a variable expansion by adding a colon and then list the desired functions in a comma-separated list that is evaluated in a left-to-right order. Variable content holding null bytes that are not encoded when expanded, causes an error.

Available functions:

trim

removes all leading and trailing white space.

json

outputs the content using JSON string quoting rules.

url

shows the content URL (percent) encoded.

b64

expands the variable base64 encoded