I would like to cat the contents of a file.txt and use this as part of the --data field in my curl query.
I tried:
curl ... --data '{ "file_content":[" $(cat file.txt) ", ...]}"' ... but that passes the string $(cat file.txt) to the server rather than interpreting it before sending.
I also tried:
curl ... --data '{ "file_content":[" `cat file.txt` ", ...]}"' ... Again, the passes the string as it is instead of interpreting it.
You probably wouldn't need 3 of those backslashes if you can remove the shell from the equation. Luckily, you can:
{ printf '{ "file_content":["' cat file.txt printf '", ...]}"' }| curl ... --data-binary @- Look at man curl. I suggest paying close attention to the differences between --data-ascii (which is what -d means), --data-binary, and --data-urlencoded.
jq --null-input --arg contents "$(<file.txt)" '{ file_content: [$contents, ...]}' | curl .... curl -d "$(cat /path/to/my/file.txt)" -X POST http://<your_base_URL>/api/v1/endpoint Tested this one and it works. If you want to put everything against the file_content key, you have to be careful with the quoting, as the file you cat may have any number of quotes inside it.
