While the subject of command line options is floating around, I'd
like to propose that curl be able to accept parameters and upload
data via stdin. A test case might be something like:

( echo -q
  echo -s
  echo -P -
  echo -u id:password
  echo -T -
  echo --url ftp://site/path
  echo --end-parms
  cat uploadfile ) | curl -K -

This avoids any sensitive data on the command line. All or part of
the parameters can come via standard in. This would work nicely
in popen-like environments and also support "canned" transfers
in the form:

curl -K - < commandAndDataFile

Seems there are two things needed to do this:

1) The parser must have a clear way to stop taking parameters.

One way to do this would be to add a parameter to indicate end of
parameters, such as --end-parms, above. The convention could be
something like all data following the line feed at the end of
the --end-parms line would be considered to be upload data.
Perhaps --end-parms could be abreviated "--". (Perhaps
"everything from stdin" mode could be abbreviated "curl -".)

Another option would be to have a single control character such
as EOT (hex 04) and/or ETX (hex 03) delimit the parameter portion
of the input stream.

2) The upload input routine must have a way to start out with
the data immediately following the parameters.

I think this implies some sort of common stdin routine to
deal with the partial buffer. To be honest, I got lost
trying to figure out how this could be cleanly done.

-=-

One other related thought would be to expand on the notion
of "-" meaning stdin. Why not allow digits immediately
following the dash to represent a file descriptor number?
"-" is equivalent to "-0" (dash zero), stdin. "-11" would
mean file descriptor 11. Thus a parent program could have
files/pipes open on various fds and fork exec/system/popen
a curl child process to transfer to/from them.

-=-

Please excuse any inaccuracies in the above. I haven't
had time to properly study these, just take a quick glance.

Cheers!
Rich

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Received on 2003-08-20