These are slides from a "mini-talk" (~15 minutes) I recently gave on httpie.

1. Scott Leberknight

2. "HTTPie: a CLI, cURL-like tool for humans"
- httpie.org

3. "HTTPie is a command line HTTP
client. Its goal is to make CLI
interaction with web services as
human-friendly as possible."
- httpie.org

4. Implemented in Python
Provides simple http command
Colorized, formatted output

6. pip install --upgrade httpie
Installation
or
easy_install httpie
or
yum install httpie
(etc.)

7. Major Features
colorized output
output formatting
query/form parameters
security (auth, https)
headers
form file uploads
persistent sessions
supports all HTTP verbs
wget-style downloads
streamed responses

8. Usage
http [flags] [METHOD] URL [REQUEST ITEMS]

9. 3 cool sites to test with:
requestb.in
example.org
httpbin.org

13. Let's try it...

14. Hello World
http httpie.org

16. -v (verbose)

17. Defaults...
method - GET
scheme - http://
data fields - JSON

18. Request Headers
http requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
Accept:application/json
X-Test-Header:'Foo, Bar'
Name:Value

20. URL parameters
name==value
http requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
search=='curl vs. httpie'
page==2

22. Data Fields (JSON)
field=value
field=@file.txt
http requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
search='curl vs. httpie'
page=2

23. ...httpie will set the method to POST
when a request contains data fields...

25. Data Fields (from a file)
http requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
data=@/Users/sleberkn/w.txt

27. Data Fields (form)
-f, --form
field=value
field=@file.txt
http --form requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
search='curl vs. httpie'
page=2

28. ...httpie will set the content type
to application/x-www-form-urlencoded
when you use --form ( or -f )...

30. Raw JSON
field:=value
field:=@file.txt
http requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
terms:='["curl", "vs.", "httpie"]'
page:=2

32. File Uploads
field@/dir/file_name
http requestb.in/vnm6qyvn
the_file@/Users/sleberkn/w.txt

33. ...httpie will set the content type
to multipart/form-data
when you do a file upload...

35. Easy as httpie!

36. HTTP Methods
GET
POST
PUT
PATCH
DELETE
HEAD
(and a few more obscure ones...)

37. Testing methods with httpbin.org
http GET httpbin.org/get
http POST httpbin.org/post foo=bar
http PUT httpbin.org/put foo=bar
http PATCH httpbin.org/patch foo=bar
http -f DELETE httpbin.org/delete

38. Authentication
BASIC (default) or Digest
-a,--auth
--auth-type
Has plugins for OAuth & others

39. Username & password

40. Username & password prompt

41. Downloads
-d,--download
-o,--output
http -d -o out.txt httpbin.org/get

43. Persistent Sessions
Custom headers, authorization,
and cookies persist between
requests to the same host
Named & anonymous sessions

44. http --session=user1
-a user1:secret
example.org
X-Thingy:Foo
http --session=user2
-a user2:monkey
example.org
Named Sessions

45. Other stuff...
HTTPS support
Supports proxies
Redirect to/from http
Control output via flags
(--headers, --body, --print, etc.)
JSON config file
Scripting support
(via --check-status)
Streaming responses

46. httpie web site:
httpie.org
(redirects to https://github.com/jkbr/httpie )
References
httpbin HTTP request & response service:
httpbin.org
RequestBin:
requestb.in

47. My Info
twitter: sleberknight
www.sleberknight.com/blog
scott dot leberknight at gmail.com