PowerShell equivalent of curl

PowerShell 3.0 has the new command Invoke-RestMethod:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849971.aspx

more detail:

https://discoposse.com/2012/06/30/powershell-invoke-restmethod-putting-the-curl-in-your-shell/


As of Powershell 5.0, if not before, curl is an alias for Invoke-WebRequest.

PS> Get-Alias -Definition Invoke-WebRequest | Format-Table -AutoSize

CommandType Name                      Version Source
----------- ----                      ------- ------
Alias       curl -> Invoke-WebRequest
Alias       iwr -> Invoke-WebRequest
Alias       wget -> Invoke-WebRequest

To use the unaliased command ...

PS> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://localhost:443/
PS> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://www.google.com

So return several properties of the request as follows ...

PS> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://www.google.com

StatusCode        : 200
StatusDescription : OK
Content           : <!doctype html><html itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/WebPage" lang="en-AU"><head><meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
                    http-equiv="Content-Type"><meta content="/images/branding/googleg/1x/...
RawContent        : HTTP/1.1 200 OK
                    X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
                    X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
                    Vary: Accept-Encoding

... or just the content ...

PS> Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://www.google.com | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Content

<!doctype html><html itemscope="" itemtype="http://schem[etc ...]

The equivalent aliased commands are ...

PS> curl -Uri https://www.google.com
PS> curl -Uri https://www.google.com | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Content

Leveraging Powershell defaults and other aliases you could shorten the commands to

PS> curl https://www.google.com 
ps> curl https://www.google.com | Select -ExpandProperty Content

... but I wouldn't recommend it. Verbose commands help others when reading your code.

Update:

Powershell 6.x

Use of Aliases discouraged

As of Powershell 6.x "Core" curl is no longer an alias for Invoke-WebRequest (the alias wget is also removed) . Instead use Invoke-WebRequest directly.

PS> Get-Alias -Definition Invoke-WebRequest | Format-Table -AutoSize

CommandType Name                     Version Source
----------- ----                     ------- ------
Alias       iwr -> Invoke-WebRequest

Curl is no longer an alias for Invoke-WebRequest (tested on Powershell 6.2.3), despite an apparent rejection of a motion in an RFC "to to remove the aliases curl and wget from Windows PowerShell".

That RFC notes "The wget/curl aliases were already removed from PowerShell Core so the problem [of having those aliases] was limited to Windows PowerShell."

In the conclusion the Powershell team also encourages users "to not rely on aliases in scripts".

As @v6ak has noted in the comments using curl and wget in PowerShell (5.0 or lower) can be a problem in: unintentionally invoking the real curl or wget if installed side-by-side; and, in any case, causes confusion.

New Encoding

It is recommended you upgrade Powershell "core" (6.x or above) in order to take advantage of the default encoding utf8NoBOM, when using Invoke-WebRequest (and many other text outputting commands). If one was doing this explicitly you could do something like:

Invoke-WebRequest ` 
-Uri https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fancyapps/fancybox/master/dist/jquery.fancybox.min.js `
| Select-Object -ExpandProperty Content `
| Out-File jquery.fancybox.min.js `
-Encoding utf8NoBOM

However, even when using a shorter, implicit, command ...

Invoke-WebRequest `
-Uri https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fancyapps/fancybox/master/dist/jquery.fancybox.min.js `
-OutFile jquery.fancybox.min.js

... encoding with utf8NoBOM will be done (you can verify this, for example, by opening the saved file in Visual Studio Code and observing "UTF-8" in the status bar).

Files saved with utf8NoBOM tend to cause fewer problems when traveling through various ecosystems. Of course, if you need some other encoding you can set some alternative explicitly.

In Powershell 5.0 and lower the utf8NoBOM encoding was not available, let alone the default.

Details:

  • Powershell 6, Reference, Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility, Out-File, Parameters, -Encoding
  • Powershell 6, What's new, What's new in Powershell Core 6.x, Breaking changes in Powershell Core 6.0, "Change $OutputEncoding to use UTF-8 NoBOM encoding rather than ASCII #5369"

The excellent Command Line Kung Fu blog has a post where they compare curl, wget and the related PowerShell commands

In a nutshell: 

(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString("http://www.example.com/hello-world.html","C:\hello-world.html")

Or, if your version of Powershell/.Net doesn't accept 2 parameters for DownloadString:

(New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString("http://www.example.com/hello-world.html") > "C:\hello-world.html"

Tags:

Windows

Powershell

Curl

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