The curl command performs many functions, including downloading, sending different HTTP requests, and specifying HTTP headers.

• To dump the downloaded file to stdout, use the following command:

        $ curl URL

• The -O option specifies sending the downloaded data into a file with the filename parsed from the URL. Note that the URL must be a full page URL, not just a site name.

        $ curl www.knopper.net/index.htm --silent -O

• The -o option specifies the output file name. With this option you can specify only the site name to retrieve the home page.

        $curl www.knopper.net -o knoppix_index.html
        % Total % Received % Xferd  Avg  Speed Time   Time  Time  
        Current
        Dload Upload Total Spent Left  Speed
        100 6889 100 6889  0 0     10902  0     --:-- --:-- --:-- 26033

• The -silent option prevents the curl command from displaying progress information:

        $ curl URL --silent

• The -progress option displays progress bar while downloading:

        $ curl http://knopper.net -o index.html --progress
        ################################## 100.0%