How to Use cURL to Test RESTful Rails

Author: Duane Johnson

4 Aug

I’ve begun experimenting with the new Edge Rails code that includes built-in support for REST. (The code that was once in the simply_restful plugin is now a part of Edge Rails.) With the capability to generate multiple types of output per action, it has become more and more useful to test actions on the command-line using cURL. Here are some useful cURL parameters I’ve used:

-X [action]: Allows you to specify an HTTP action such as GET, POST, PUT or DELETE.
Example:
```
curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/books/1
```
-d [parameter]: Lets you set variables as if they were POSTed in a form to the URL. Note that this automatically makes the request a POST HTTP action type (no -X necessary).
Example:
```
curl -d "book[title]=Test" -d "book[copyright]=1998"
http://localhost:3000/books
```
-H [header]: Gives you the option of setting an HTTP header such as Content-Type or Accept. This is particularly useful for requesting text/xml as the Accept type.
Example:
```
curl -H "Accept: text/xml"
http://localhost:3000/books/sections/1
```

Putting it all together, here’s a cURL command that updates the title of a Book object using the PUT action and expects an xml response:

curl -H "Accept: text/xml" -X PUT -d "book[title]=Testing Again"
http://localhost:3000/books/1

Filed under: Software Engineering, Uncategorized

5 Responses for "How to Use cURL to Test RESTful Rails"

Greg Bluvshteyn August 31st, 2006 at 8:00 pm 1
What about rake test_functional. What can you not do through your tests, that cUrl can do?
Building RESTful Application in Rails 2.0 Step-by-Step - Visual and Comprehensive Tutorial | Just Talk About Web June 11th, 2008 at 3:59 am 2
[...] need a client tool. For those who want to use command line only, cURL is highly recommended (see Duane Johnson’s tutorial for how to use it in testing.) However, I want all processes are visual, so I use Rest-Client [...]
karmi December 7th, 2008 at 2:10 pm 3
Be sure to send also XML Content-Type, as suggested here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/269487/how-to-deal-with-protectfromforgery-to-make-rails-applications-communicate

Your curl command should therefore look something like this:

curl -H “Accept: text/xml” -H “Content-Type: text/xml” -d “Fix InvalidAuthenticityToken” http://localhost:3000/tasks
Duane Johnson December 7th, 2008 at 4:21 pm 4
@karmi: Thanks! I hadn’t tried these curl commands since the new fandangled authenticity features were enabled in Rails
CURL in Testing - jaffamonkey May 8th, 2009 at 7:01 am 5
[...] for Testing Web Applications CURL and Ruby on Rails Related PostsTesting is a confusing enough area as it isTesting is a confusing enough area as it is [...]