xh

xh is a friendly and fast tool for sending HTTP requests. It reimplements as much as possible of HTTPie's excellent design.

Installation

via curl (Linux/macOS)

curl -sfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ducaale/xh/master/install.sh | sh

via a package manager

* Make sure that you have Rust 1.46 or later installed

via pre-built binaries

The release page contains prebuilt binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows.

Usage

USAGE:
    xh [OPTIONS] <[METHOD] URL> [--] [REQUEST_ITEM]...

OPTIONS:
    -j, --json                       (default) Serialize data items from the command line as a JSON object
    -f, --form                       Serialize data items from the command line as form fields
    -m, --multipart                  Like --form, but force a multipart/form-data request even without files
        --pretty <STYLE>             Controls output processing [possible values: all, colors, format, none]
    -s, --style <THEME>              Output coloring style [possible values: auto, solarized]
    -p, --print <FORMAT>             String specifying what the output should contain
    -h, --headers                    Print only the response headers, shortcut for --print=h
    -b, --body                       Print only the response body, Shortcut for --print=b
    -v, --verbose                    Print the whole request as well as the response
    -q, --quiet                      Do not print to stdout or stderr
    -S, --stream                     Always stream the response body
    -o, --output <FILE>              Save output to FILE instead of stdout
    -d, --download                   Download the body to a file instead of printing it
    -c, --continue                   Resume an interrupted download. Requires --download and --output
    -a, --auth <USER[:PASS]>         Authenticate as USER with PASS. PASS will be prompted if missing
        --bearer <TOKEN>             Authenticate with a bearer token
        --ignore-netrc               Do not use credentials from .netrc
        --offline                    Construct HTTP requests without sending them anywhere
        --check-status               Exit with an error status code if the server replies with an error
    -F, --follow                     Do follow redirects
        --max-redirects <NUM>        Number of redirects to follow, only respected if `follow` is set
        --timeout <SEC>              Connection timeout of the request
        --proxy <PROTOCOL:URL>...    Use a proxy for a protocol. For example: `--proxy https:http://proxy.host:8080`
        --verify <VERIFY>            If "no", skip SSL verification. If a file path, use it as a CA bundle
        --cert <FILE>                Use a client side certificate for SSL
        --cert-key <FILE>            A private key file to use with --cert
        --https                      Make HTTPS requests if not specified in the URL
    -I, --ignore-stdin               Do not attempt to read stdin
        --curl                       Print a translation to a `curl` command
        --curl-long                  Use the long versions of curl's flags
        --help                       Prints help information
    -V, --version                    Prints version information

ARGS:
    <[METHOD] URL>       The request URL, preceded by an optional HTTP method
    <REQUEST_ITEM>...    Optional key-value pairs to be included in the request

Each option can be reset with a --no-OPTION argument.

Run xh help for more detailed information.

Request Items

xh uses HTTPie's request-item syntax to set headers, request body, query string, etc.

• =/:= for setting the request body's JSON or form fields (= for strings and := for other JSON types).
• == for adding query strings.
• @ for including files in multipart requests e.g picture@hello.jpg or picture@hello.jpg;type=image/jpeg.
• : for adding or removing headers e.g connection:keep-alive or connection:.
• ; for including headers with empty values e.g header-without-value;.
• =@/:=@ for setting the request body's JSON or form fields from a file (= for strings and := for other JSON types).

The request body can also be read from standard input, or from a file using @filename.

xh and xhs

xh will default to HTTPS scheme if the binary name is one of xhs, https, or xhttps. If you have installed xh via a package manager, both xh and xhs should be available by default. Otherwise, you need to create one like this:

$ cd /path/to/xh
$ ln -s ./xh ./xhs

xh httpbin.org/get | jq .url  # "http://httpbin.org/get"
xhs httpbin.org/get | jq .url # "https://httpbin.org/get"

Examples

# Send a GET request
xh httpbin.org/json

# Send a POST request with body {"name": "ahmed", "age": 24}
xh httpbin.org/post name=ahmed age:=24

# Send a GET request with querystring id=5&sort=true
xh get httpbin.org/json id==5 sort==true

# Send a GET request and include a header named x-api-key with value 12345
xh get httpbin.org/json x-api-key:12345

# Send a PUT request and pipe the result to less
xh put httpbin.org/put id:=49 age:=25 | less

# Download and save to res.json
xh -d httpbin.org/json -o res.json

xh vs HTTPie

Advantages over HTTPie

• Improved startup speed. xh may run short requests many times as fast.
• Available as a single statically linked binary that's easy to install and carry around.
• HTTP/2 support.
• Builtin translation to curl commands with the --curl flag (similar to https://curl2httpie.online/).
• Short, cheatsheet-style output from --help. (For longer output, pass help.)

Disadvantages

• Not all of HTTPie's features are implemented. (#4)
• HTTP/2 cannot be disabled. (#68)
• No plugin system.
• General immaturity. HTTPie is old and well-tested.
• Worse documentation.

Other differences

• rustls is used instead of the system's TLS library.
• Headers are sent and printed in lowercase.
• JSON keys are not sorted.
• Formatted output is always UTF-8.

Similar Projects

• https://github.com/rs/curlie
• https://github.com/saghm/rural
• https://github.com/mark-burnett/ht