Table of Contents

• Presentation
  • What's Hurl?
  • Also an HTTP Test Tool
  • Powered by curl
  • Why Hurl?
• Documentation
• Samples
  • Getting Data
    • Query Params
  • Sending Data
    • Sending HTML Form Datas
    • Sending Multipart Form Datas
    • Posting a JSON Body
    • Templating a JSON/XML Body
  • Testing Response
    • Testing Response Headers
    • Testing REST Apis
    • Testing HTML Response
    • Testing Set-Cookie Attributes
  • Others
    • Testing Endpoint Performance
    • Using SOAP Apis
    • Capturing and Using a CSRF Token
• Usage
  • Options
  • Environment
  • Exit codes
• Building
  • Linux, macOS
  • Windows
• Feedbacks

Presentation

What's Hurl?

Hurl is a command line tool that performs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format.

It can perform requests, capture values and evaluate queries on headers and body response. Hurl is very versatile: it can be used for both fetching data and testing HTTP sessions.

# Get home:
GET https://example.net

HTTP/1.1 200
[Captures]
csrf_token: xpath "string(//meta[@name='_csrf_token']/@content)"

# Do login!
POST https://example.net/login?user=toto&password=1234
X-CSRF-TOKEN: {{csrf_token}}

HTTP/1.1 302

Chaining multiple requests is easy:

GET https://api.example.net/health
GET https://api.example.net/step1
GET https://api.example.net/step2
GET https://api.example.net/step3

Also an HTTP Test Tool

Hurl can run HTTP requests but can also be used to test HTTP responses. Different type of queries and predicates are supported, from XPath and JSONPath on body response, to assert on status code and response headers.

GET https://example.net

HTTP/1.1 200
[Asserts]
xpath "normalize-space(//head/title)" == "Hello world!"

It is well adapted for REST/json apis

POST https://api.example.net/tests
{
    "id": "456",
    "evaluate": true
}

HTTP/1.1 200
[Asserts]
jsonpath "$.status" == "RUNNING"      # Check the status code
jsonpath "$.tests" count == 25        # Check the number of items

and even SOAP apis

POST https://example.net/InStock
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:m="http://www.example.org">
  <soap:Header></soap:Header>
  <soap:Body>
    <m:GetStockPrice>
      <m:StockName>GOOG</m:StockName>
    </m:GetStockPrice>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200

Hurl can also be used to test HTTP endpoints performances:

GET http://api.example.org/v1/pets

HTTP/1.0 200
[Asserts]
duration < 1000  # Duration in ms

Powered by curl

Hurl is a lightweight binary written in Rust. Under the hood, Hurl HTTP engine is powered by libcurl, one of the most powerful and reliable file transfer library. With its text file format, Hurl adds syntactic sugar to run and tests HTTP requests, but it's still the curl that we love.

Why Hurl?

• Text format for both devops and developers
• Fast command-line for both local dev and continuous integration
• Single binary, easy to install, with no runtime required

Documentation

Visit the Hurl web site to find out how to install and use Hurl. Precompiled binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows are also available in the GitHub releases section.

• Installation
• Samples
• File Format

Samples

To run a sample, you can edit a file with the sample content, and use Hurl:

$ vi sample.hurl

GET https://example.net

$ hurl sample.hurl

Getting Data

A simple GET:

GET https://example.net

Doc

A simple GET with headers:

GET https://example.net/news
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Connection: keep-alive

Doc

Query Params

GET https://example.net/news
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0
[QueryStringParams]
order: newest
search: something to search
count: 100

Or:

GET https://example.net/news?order=newest&search=something%20to%20search&count=100
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0

Doc

Sending Data

Sending HTML Form Datas

POST https://example.net/contact
[FormParams]
default: false
token: {{token}}
email: john.doe@rookie.org
number: 33611223344

Doc

Sending Multipart Form Datas

POST https://example.net/upload
[MultipartFormData]
field1: value1
field2: file,example.txt;
# On can specify the file content type:
field3: file,example.zip; application/zip

Doc

Posting a JSON Body

With an inline JSON:

POST https://api.example.net/tests
{
    "id": "456",
    "evaluate": true
}

Doc

With a local file:

POST https://api.example.net/tests
Content-Type: application/json
file,data.json;

Doc

Templating a JSON/XML Body

Using templates with JSON body or XML body is not currently supported in Hurl. Besides, you can use templates in raw string body with variables to send a JSON or XML body:

PUT https://api.example.net/hits
Content-Type: application/json
```
{
    "key0": "{{a_string}}",
    "key1": {{a_bool}},
    "key2": {{a_null}},
    "key3": {{a_number}}
}
```

Variables can be initialized via command line:

$ hurl --variable key0=apple --variable key1=true --variable key2=null --variable key3=42 test.hurl

Resulting in a PUT request with the following JSON body:

{
    "key0": "apple",
    "key1": true,
    "key2": null,
    "key3": 42
}

Doc

Testing Response

Testing Response Headers

Use implicit response asserts to test header values:

GET http://www.example.org/index.html

HTTP/1.0 200
Set-Cookie: theme=light
Set-Cookie: sessionToken=abc123; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT

Doc

Or use explicit response asserts with predicates:

GET https://example.net

HTTP/1.1 302
[Asserts]
header "Location" contains "www.example.net"

Doc

Testing REST Apis

Asserting JSON body response with JSONPath:

GET https//example.org/order
screencapability: low

HTTP/1.1 200
[Asserts]
jsonpath "$.validated" == true
jsonpath "$.userInfo.firstName" == "Franck"
jsonpath "$.userInfo.lastName" == "Herbert"
jsonpath "$.hasDevice" == false
jsonpath "$.links" count == 12
jsonpath "$.state" != null

Doc

Testing status code:

GET https//example.org/order/435

HTTP/1.1 200

Doc

GET https//example.org/order/435

# Testing status code is in a 200-300 range
HTTP/1.1 *
[Asserts]
status >= 200
status < 300

Doc

Testing HTML Response

GET https://example.com

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

[Asserts]
xpath "string(/html/head/title)" contains "Example" # Check title
xpath "count(//p)" == 2                             # Check the number of p
xpath "//p" count == 2                              # Similar assert for p
xpath "boolean(count(//h2))" == false               # Check there is no h2
xpath "//h2" not exists                             # Similar assert for h2

Doc

Testing Set-Cookie Attributes

GET http://myserver.com/home

HTTP/1.0 200
[Asserts]
cookie "JSESSIONID" == "8400BAFE2F66443613DC38AE3D9D6239"
cookie "JSESSIONID[Value]" == "8400BAFE2F66443613DC38AE3D9D6239"
cookie "JSESSIONID[Expires]" contains "Wed, 13 Jan 2021"
cookie "JSESSIONID[Secure]" exists
cookie "JSESSIONID[HttpOnly]" exists
cookie "JSESSIONID[SameSite]" == "Lax"

Doc

Others

Testing Endpoint Performance

GET https://sample.org/helloworld

HTTP/* *
[Asserts]
duration < 1000   # Check that response time is less than one second

Doc

Using SOAP Apis

POST https://example.net/InStock
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:m="http://www.example.org">
  <soap:Header></soap:Header>
  <soap:Body>
    <m:GetStockPrice>
      <m:StockName>GOOG</m:StockName>
    </m:GetStockPrice>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200

Doc

Capturing and Using a CSRF Token

GET https://example.net

HTTP/* 200
[Captures]
csrf_token: xpath "string(//meta[@name='_csrf_token']/@content)"

POST https://example.net/login?user=toto&password=1234
X-CSRF-TOKEN: {{csrf_token}}

HTTP/* 302

Doc

Usage

Options

Options that exist in curl have exactly the same semantic.

Option	Description
--color	Colorize Output
-b, --cookie <file>	Read cookies from file (using the Netscape cookie file format). Combined with -c, --cookie-jar, you can simulate a cookie storage between successive Hurl runs.
--compressed	Request a compressed response using one of the algorithms br, gzip, deflate and automatically decompress the content.
--connect-timeout <seconds>	Maximum time in seconds that you allow Hurl's connection to take. See also -m, --max-time option.
-c, --cookie-jar <file>	Write cookies to FILE after running the session (only for one session). The file will be written using the Netscape cookie file format. Combined with -b, --cookie,you can simulate a cookie storage between successive Hurl runs.
--fail-at-end	Continue executing requests to the end of the Hurl file even when an assert error occurs. By default, Hurl exits after an assert error in the HTTP response. Note that this option does not affect the behavior with multiple input Hurl files. All the input files are executed independently. The result of one file does not affect the execution of the other Hurl files.
--file-root <dir>	Set root filesystem to import files in Hurl. This is used for both files in multipart form data and request body. When this is not explicitly defined, the files are relative to the current directory in which Hurl is running.
-h, --help	Usage help. This lists all current command line options with a short description.
--html <dir>	Generate html report in dir. If the html report already exists, it will be updated with the new test results.
-i, --include	Include the HTTP headers in the output (last entry).
--interactive	Stop between requests. This is similar to a break point, You can then continue (Press C) or quit (Press Q).
--json <file>	Write full session(s) to a json file. The format is very closed to HAR format. If the json file already exists, the file will be updated with the new test results.
--k, --insecure	This option explicitly allows Hurl to perform "insecure" SSL connections and transfers.
-L, --location	Follow redirect. You can limit the amount of redirects to follow by using the --max-redirs option.
-m, --max-time <seconds>	Maximum time in seconds that you allow a request/response to take. This is the standard timeout. See also --connect-timeout option.
--max-redirs <num>	Set maximum number of redirection-followings allowed. By default, the limit is set to 50 redirections. Set this option to -1 to make it unlimited.
--no-color	Do not colorize Output
--noproxy <no-proxy-list>	Comma-separated list of hosts which do not use a proxy. Override value from Environment variable no_proxy.
--to-entry <entry-number	Execute Hurl file to ENTRY_NUMBER (starting at 1). Ignore the remaining of the file. It is useful for debugging a session.
-o, --output <file>	Write output to instead of stdout.
-x, --proxy [protocol://]host[:port]	Use the specified proxy.
-u, --user <user:password>	Add basic Authentication header to each request.
--variable <name=value>	Define variable (name/value) to be used in Hurl templates. Only string values can be defined.
--variables-file <file>	Set properties file in which your define your variables. Each variable is defined as name=value exactly as with --variable option. Note that defining a variable twice produces an error.
-v, --verbose	Turn on verbose output on standard error stream. Useful for debugging. A line starting with '>' means data sent by Hurl. A line staring with '<' means data received by Hurl. A line starting with '*' means additional info provided by Hurl. If you only want HTTP headers in the output, -i, --include might be the option you're looking for.
-V, --version	Prints version information

Environment

Environment variables can only be specified in lowercase.

Using an environment variable to set the proxy has the same effect as using the -x, --proxy option.

Variable	Description
http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]	Sets the proxy server to use for HTTP.
https_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]	Sets the proxy server to use for HTTPS.
all_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]	Sets the proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is set.
no_proxy <comma-separated list of hosts>	list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy.

Exit codes

Value	Description
1	Failed to parse command-line options.
2	Input File Parsing Error.
3	Runtime error (such as failure to connect to host).
4	Assert Error.

Building

Linux, macOS

Hurl depends on libssl, libcurl and libxml2 native libraries. You will need their development files in your platform.

# debian based distributions
apt install -y pkg-config libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libxml2-dev

# redhat based distributions
yum install -y pkg-config gcc openssl-devel libxml2-devel

# arch based distributions
pacman -Sy --noconfirm pkgconf gcc openssl libxml2

Hurl is written in Rust. You should install the latest stable release.

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh -s -- -y
source $HOME/.cargo/env
rustc --version
cargo --version

Build

git clone https://github.com/Orange-OpenSource/hurl
cd hurl
cargo build --release
./target/release/hurl --version

Install Binary

cargo install --path packages/hurl

Windows

please follow the contrib/windows section

Feedbacks

Hurl is still in beta, any feedback, suggestion, bugs or improvements are welcome.

POST https://hurl.dev/api/feedback
{
    "name": "John Doe",
    "feedback": "Hurl is awesome !"
}
HTTP/1.1 200