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How to Get HTTP Status Code of a Web Site Using cURL

By: Author Alex Lim

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  • The content is an article that teaches how to use curl to get the HTTP status code of a web page, along with other useful information such as headers, response body, and redirections.
  • The content also explains some of the options and flags that can be used with curl to customize the requests and outputs, such as -w, -i, -L, -v, etc.
  • The content also provides some FAQs and answers related to curl, such as how to save the response body to a file, how to send a POST request, how to set custom headers, etc.

Curl is a popular and powerful tool that allows you to send and receive data over various network protocols, such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc. Curl can also be used to test and debug web applications by making requests and inspecting the responses. One of the most common tasks that curl can perform is to get the HTTP status code of a web page, which indicates the result of the request. For example, 200 means OK, 404 means Not Found, 301 means Moved Permanently, and so on.

In this article, we will show you how to use curl to get the HTTP status code of a web page, along with other useful information such as headers, response body, and redirections. We will also explain some of the options and flags that you can use with curl to customize your requests and outputs.

How to Get HTTP Status Code of a Web Site Using cURL

How to Get the HTTP Status Code with Curl

To get the HTTP status code of a web page with curl, you need to use the -w or –write-out option, which allows you to specify a format string that will be printed after the transfer is completed. The format string can contain various variables that represent different aspects of the request and response. For example, %{http_code} will print the numerical HTTP status code, %{url_effective} will print the final URL after any redirections, %{time_total} will print the total time in seconds that the transfer took, etc. You can find a complete list of available variables in the curl documentation.

Here is an example of how to use curl to get the HTTP status code of a web page:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" https://example.com

The -s or –silent option will suppress any progress or error messages from curl. The -o or –output option will write the response body to a file or device instead of standard output. In this case, we use /dev/null as the output file, which means we discard the response body. The -w or –write-out option will print the format string after the transfer is completed. In this case, we use %{http_code} as the format string, which will print the numerical HTTP status code.

The output of this command will be something like this:

200

This means that the request was successful and the web page was found.

How to Get More Information with Curl

If you want to get more information about the request and response with curl, you can use some of the following options and flags:

  • -i or –include: This option will include the HTTP headers in the output. This can be useful to see information such as content type, content length, server name, date, cookies, etc.
  • -I or –head: This option will make curl perform a HEAD request instead of a GET request. This means that curl will only fetch the headers and not the response body. This can be useful to save bandwidth and time when you only care about the headers.
  • -L or –location: This option will make curl follow any redirections that occur during the transfer. This can be useful to see where a web page redirects you to or to get the final URL after any redirections.
  • -v or –verbose: This option will make curl print verbose information about the transfer, such as connection details, SSL certificates, request and response headers, etc. This can be useful for debugging purposes or to see more details about what curl is doing.

Here is an example of how to use curl to get more information about a web page:

curl -iL https://example.com

The -i or –include option will include the HTTP headers in the output. The -L or –location option will make curl follow any redirections that occur during the transfer.

The output of this command will be something like this:

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://www.example.com/
Server: BigIP
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Length: 0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: max-age=604800
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 03:01:15 GMT
Etag: "3147526947+ident"
Expires: Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:01:15 GMT
Last-Modified: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 07:18:26 GMT
Server: ECS (nyb/1D2A)
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Cache: HIT
Content-Length: 1256

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Example Domain</title>
    ...
</head>
<body>
    <div>
        <h1>Example Domain</h1>
        ...
    </div>
</body>
</html>

This output shows that the request was redirected from https://example.com to https://www.example.com, and then the response body of the final web page was printed.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Question: How can I save the response body to a file with curl?

Answer: You can use the -o or –output option to specify a file name where the response body will be written. For example:

curl -o example.html https://example.com

This command will save the response body of https://example.com to a file named example.html.

Question: How can I send a POST request with curl?

Answer: You can use the -X or –request option to specify the HTTP method that curl will use. For example:

curl -X POST https://example.com

This command will send a POST request to https://example.com.

You can also use the -d or –data option to specify the data that will be sent in the request body. For example:

curl -X POST -d "name=John&age=25" https://example.com

This command will send a POST request to https://example.com with the data name=John&age=25 in the request body.

Question: How can I set custom headers with curl?

Answer: You can use the -H or –header option to specify custom headers that curl will send in the request. For example:

curl -H "User-Agent: MyCustomAgent" https://example.com

This command will send a request to https://example.com with the header User-Agent: MyCustomAgent.

You can use multiple -H or –header options to set multiple headers. For example:

curl -H "User-Agent: MyCustomAgent" -H "Accept: text/html" https://example.com

This command will send a request to https://example.com with the headers User-Agent: MyCustomAgent and Accept: text/html.

Summary

In this article, we have learned how to use curl to get the HTTP status code of a web page, along with other useful information such as headers, response body, and redirections. We have also explained some of the options and flags that you can use with curl to customize your requests and outputs. Curl is a versatile and powerful tool that can help you test and debug web applications, as well as perform various network tasks.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. The author and publisher are not responsible for any damages or losses that may result from the use of curl or any other tool mentioned in this article. Always consult a qualified expert before using any tool or technique on a live web site or network.