ncurl

nano cURL - a minimalist http(s) client.

Usage

ncurl(
  url,
  convert = TRUE,
  follow = FALSE,
  method = NULL,
  headers = NULL,
  data = NULL,
  response = NULL,
  timeout = NULL,
  tls = NULL
)

Arguments

url: the URL address.
convert: [default TRUE] logical value whether to attempt conversion of the received raw bytes to a character vector. Set to FALSE if downloading non-text data.
follow: [default FALSE] logical value whether to automatically follow redirects (not applicable for async requests). If FALSE, the redirect address is returned as response header 'Location'.
method: (optional) the HTTP method as a character string. Defaults to 'GET' if not specified, and could also be 'POST', 'PUT' etc.
headers: (optional) a named character vector specifying the HTTP request headers, for example:
c(Authorization = "Bearer APIKEY", "Content-Type" = "text/plain")
A non-character or non-named vector will be ignored.
data: (optional) request data to be submitted. Must be a character string or raw vector, and other objects are ignored. If a character vector, only the first element is taken. When supplying binary data, the appropriate 'Content-Type' header should be set to specify the binary format.
response: (optional) a character vector specifying the response headers to return e.g. c("date", "server"). These are case-insensitive and will return NULL if not present. A non-character vector will be ignored.
timeout: (optional) integer value in milliseconds after which the transaction times out if not yet complete.
tls: (optional) applicable to secure HTTPS sites only, a client TLS Configuration object created by tls_config(). If missing or NULL, certificates are not validated.

Value

Named list of 3 elements:

$status - integer HTTP repsonse status code (200 - OK). Use status_code() for a translation of the meaning.
$headers - named list of response headers supplied in response, or NULL otherwise. If the status code is within the 300 range, i.e. a redirect, the response header 'Location' is automatically appended to return the redirect address.
$data - the response body, as a character string if convert = TRUE (may be further parsed as html, json, xml etc. as required), or a raw byte vector if FALSE (use writeBin() to save as a file).

Examples

ncurl(
  "https://postman-echo.com/get",
  convert = FALSE,
  response = c("date", "content-type"),
  timeout = 1200L
)
#> $status
#> [1] 200
#> 
#> $headers
#> $headers$date
#> [1] "Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:54:49 GMT"
#> 
#> $headers$`content-type`
#> [1] "application/json; charset=utf-8"
#> 
#> 
#> $data
#>   [1] 7b 22 61 72 67 73 22 3a 7b 7d 2c 22 68 65 61 64 65 72 73 22 3a 7b
#>  [23] 22 68 6f 73 74 22 3a 22 70 6f 73 74 6d 61 6e 2d 65 63 68 6f 2e 63
#>  [45] 6f 6d 22 2c 22 78 2d 66 6f 72 77 61 72 64 65 64 2d 70 72 6f 74 6f
#>  [67] 22 3a 22 68 74 74 70 73 22 7d 2c 22 75 72 6c 22 3a 22 68 74 74 70
#>  [89] 73 3a 2f 2f 70 6f 73 74 6d 61 6e 2d 65 63 68 6f 2e 63 6f 6d 2f 67
#> [111] 65 74 22 7d
#> 
ncurl(
  "https://postman-echo.com/put",
  method = "PUT",
  headers = c(Authorization = "Bearer APIKEY"),
  data = "hello world",
  timeout = 1500L
)
#> $status
#> [1] 200
#> 
#> $headers
#> NULL
#> 
#> $data
#> [1] "{\"args\":{},\"data\":\"hello world\",\"files\":{},\"form\":{},\"headers\":{\"host\":\"postman-echo.com\",\"authorization\":\"Bearer APIKEY\",\"content-length\":\"11\",\"x-forwarded-proto\":\"https\",\"content-type\":\"application/json\"},\"json\":null,\"url\":\"https://postman-echo.com/put\"}"
#> 
ncurl(
  "https://postman-echo.com/post",
  method = "POST",
  headers = c(`Content-Type` = "application/json"),
  data = '{"key":"value"}',
  timeout = 1500L
)
#> $status
#> [1] 200
#> 
#> $headers
#> NULL
#> 
#> $data
#> [1] "{\"args\":{},\"data\":{\"key\":\"value\"},\"files\":{},\"form\":{},\"headers\":{\"host\":\"postman-echo.com\",\"content-type\":\"application/json\",\"content-length\":\"15\",\"x-forwarded-proto\":\"https\"},\"json\":{\"key\":\"value\"},\"url\":\"https://postman-echo.com/post\"}"
#>

Usage

Arguments

Value

See also

Examples