Can't properly format CURL parameters with `System.cmd/2`

Questions / Help
,
1

Hi guys !

I need to run a one-time HTTP query in one of my projects, it needs to include a PEM certificate and since I was not able to find any documentation on how to do it with either hackney or mint, I decided to do it using System.cmd/2.

The valid CURL command looks like this:

curl --request POST \
--url https://xxxx \
--cert ./certdir/cert.pem \
--key ./certdir/cert-key.pem \
--verbose -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"merchantIdentifier": "xxx", "domainName":"xxx","displayName":"xxx"}'

This works as expected. However, I tried many things but was not able to run the same command from Elixir. I tried as a single string, I tried with ~s, ~w etc… and I always end up with unmatched close brace/bracket in URL position 2: error.

This is what it looks like:

    {res, _n} = System.cmd("curl", ~w[
        https://xxx
				--request POST
				--cert ./certdir/cert.pem
				--key ./certdir/cert-key.pem
				-H 'Content-Type: application/json'
				-d '{"merchantIdentifier": "xxx", "domainName":"xxx","displayName":"xxx"}
      ])

Any idea why it fails? I never got any issue with this and I am honestly confused about what’s happening and very frustrated to get stuck on such a small issue.

Thank you!

1 Like
2

You might have some luck with ssl and httpc from Erlang.

And you can’t use w if your args have spaces in them. Try a handcrafted list of strings.

Plus, you’re missing a single quote at the end.

1 Like
3

This is not producing the result you’re expecting. 'Content-Type: application/json' is getting split wrongly. I suggest using explicit strings:

[
  "https://xxx",
  "--request",
  "POST",
  "--cert",
  "./certdir/cert.pem",
  "--key",
  "./certdir/cert-key.pem",
  "-H",
  "'Content-Type: application/json'",
  "-d",
  "'{\"merchantIdentifier\": \"xxx\", \"domainName\": \"xxx\", \"displayName\": \"xxx\"}"
]

You can use the ~s() sigil for the last param to make it more readable.

1 Like