cCurl

cURL — which stands for “client URL” — is a command-line tool that developers use to transfer data to and from a server. It allows communication with a server by specifying the location — in the form of a URL — and the data the developer wishes to send.

cURL works on almost all platforms and supports several different protocols, including HTTP and HTTPS. As a result, it is often used to test communication from almost any device on a local server to most peripheral devices, as long as said device has a command line and network connectivity.

The most basic curl command is: curl http://data.com. The curl command is followed by the URL from which data is to be retrieved. In the example shown here, it would return the HTML source of data.com.