curl usage to get header

Question

Why does this not work:

curl -X HEAD http://www.google.com

But these both work just fine:

curl -I http://www.google.com

curl -X GET http://www.google.com

score 121 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

121

You need to add the -i flag to the first command, to include the HTTP header in the output. This is required to print headers.

curl -X HEAD -i http://www.google.com

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

Community

answered Sep 16 '13 at 04:10

dmc7z

1

it does work but does not return. The second answer actually does. – MrE Feb 19 '17 at 18:30

score 51 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 28 '16 at 10:03

51

curl --head https://www.example.net

I was pointed to this by curl itself; when I issued the command with -X HEAD, it printed:

Warning: Setting custom HTTP method to HEAD with -X/--request may not work the 
Warning: way you want. Consider using -I/--head instead.

answered Aug 28 '16 at 10:03

bovender

3

See https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2015/09/11/unnecessary-use-of-curl-x/ for an explanation of the message. – tgdavies Oct 25 '16 at 23:30
1

Fits like gloves – dede.exe Jun 15 '17 at 16:51

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 16 '13 at 04:02

google.com is not responding to HTTP HEAD requests, which is why you are seeing a hang for the first command.

It does respond to GET requests, which is why the third command works.

As for the second, curl just prints the headers from a standard request.

3 Answers3