check server response with curl -D

Question

As far as i can see from the man curl page, the -D option should provide me with the server response to the request i'm sending. When i try to read the file i need, stored on the server i'm connecting to, i can read it properly:

curl -uUSERNAME:PASS SERVER-NAME/path-to-file > my_output

This is successful, so i can acces properly with the credentials i use. Now i would like to create a pre-reading validation step, that first reads the response to my access attempt, if a 200 OK is received, go ahead with requesting the file... So i use

curl -D -uUSERNAME:PASS SERVER-NAME > my_output

Now i get a 401 response, i dont get it:

<title>401 Authorization Required</title>

Any advice?

Answer 1

Try doing this :

intvar=$(curl -s -w %{http_code} http://SERVER-NAME/path-to-file -o /dev/null)
case $intvar in
    4*|5*)
        echo >&2 "Fatal: HTTP $intvar code spotted."
        exit 1
    ;;
    2*|3*)
        echo "HTTP $intvar code spotted."
        # 2nd curl command
    ;;
esac

See :

man curl | less +/^' *-w'