trurl: A new command-line tool for URL parsing and manipulation by cURL Developer

A new command line tool trurl (tr stands for translate or transpose) has been recently released by Daniel Stenberg, the developer of cURL.

This tool makes working with URLs in shell scripts easier to parse URLs and address security problems associated with them while working with shell scripts.

⛏️ trurl stands for "translate or transpose URLs"

One of the great things about trurl is that it uses the libcurl URL parser, so it understands URLs in the same way that cURL, the popular command line tool, does. This makes it the perfect companion tool for curl users who want to parse and manipulate URLs more efficiently.

trurl is more than just a URL parser. It also helps to solve the many security problems associated with working with URLs. With trurl, you can feel confident that you're working with URLs safely and securely.

How to pronounce trurl? It's simple – just say "trurel", as if an 'e' existed between the r and l at the end.

How to install trrul

If you are on the Mac (macOS) or Linux (Ubuntu or other distributions) you can make use of homebrew package manager.

Installation Command:

brew install trurl

trurl Examples

• man command

  % man trurl
  
  trurl(1)                                     trurl Manual                                     trurl(1)
  
  NAME
         trurl - transpose URLs
  
  SYNOPSIS
         trurl [options]
  
  DESCRIPTION
         trurl parses, manipulates and outputs URLs and parts of URLs.
  
         It uses the RFC 3986 definition of URLs and it uses libcurl's URL parser to do so, which
         includes a few "extensions".
  
         Typically you set a few inputs and decide what of that you want output.




• To know the version

  % trurl --version
  trurl version 0.2 libcurl/7.86.0

  
  

• Create a URL using --set option

  % trurl --set host=code2care.org --set scheme=http
  http://code2care.org/
  
  % trurl --set host=code2care.org --set scheme=ftp 
  ftp://code2care.org/
  
  % trurl --set host=code2care.org --set scheme=smtp
  smtp://code2care.org/

  Use -s or --set to set the URL component. Note: Setting blank string ("") will clear it from the URL.

  



• Change PORT of a URL

  % trurl --url https://code2care.org --set port=8090

  https://code2care.org:8090

  --url option: To set the input URL to work with.

  



• Replace the host name of a URL

  % trurl --url https://code2care.org --set host=example.com
  https://example.com/
  




• Extract the path from a URL

  % trurl --url https://code2care.org/tools/json --get '{path}'
  /tools/json
  

  



• Append to a path of a URL

  trurl --url https://code2care.org/year --append path=2023
  https://code2care.org/year/2023




• Append a query string to a URL

  % trurl --url "https://code2care.org?topic=java" --append query=year=2023
  https://code2care.org/?topic=java&year=2023




• Read URLs from stdin (Example: A file)

  cat urls.txt | trurl --url-file -
  https://code2care.org/
  https://example.com/

  Make use of -f or --url-file to read URLs from the given file. Use the file name "-" to let trurl read the URLs from stdin.




• Output JSON for a URL

  Use --json flag to output all components of the URL as a JSON object.

trurl "https://code2care.org/tools/java?year=2023&topic=java20" --json
{
  "url": "https://code2care.org/tools/java?year=2023&topic=java20",
  "scheme": "https",
  "host": "code2care.org",
  "port": "443",
  "path": "/tools/java",
  "query": "year=2023&topic=java20",
}

References & Related Articles:

1) Official Webpage of trurl: https://curl.se/trurl/
2) GitHub repository: https://github.com/curl/trurl
3) trurl man page: https://curl.se/trurl/manual.html
4) Blog Post by https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2023/04/03/introducing-trurl/
5) tr (Unix) Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr_(Unix)
6) Install Homebrew on macOS https://code2care.org/howto/install-brew-m1-m2-arm-mac