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One of the most common tasks when working with the command line is to download files. There are a number of ways to do this, but the two most popular are wget and curl.
Wget is an open source command line tool for downloading files from the internet. It supports the HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies. It is a very powerful tool and can be used to download entire websites, or just specific files. It can also be used to mirror websites, meaning that it can download an exact copy of a website so that it can be viewed offline.
Curl is another open source command line tool for downloading files from the internet. It supports many protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, and more. It can be used to download single files, or to recursively download entire directories. It also has many advanced features such as the ability to resume interrupted downloads and the ability to set custom HTTP headers.
Both wget and curl are available for Windows, and can be downloaded from their respective websites. Once installed, they can be used from the command line in the same way as any other command line tool.
To download a file using wget, the syntax is as follows:
wget [URL]
This will download the file at the specified URL. If the file is on an FTP or SFTP server, the syntax is slightly different:
wget ftp://[username]:[password]@[server]/[file]
This will download the file from the FTP or SFTP server using the specified username and password.
To download a file using curl, the syntax is as follows:
curl [URL]
This will download the file at the specified URL. If the file is on an FTP or SFTP server, the syntax is slightly different:
curl ftp://[username]:[password]@[server]/[file]
This will download the file from the FTP or SFTP server using the specified username and password.
In addition to downloading files, both wget and curl can be used to upload files as well. The syntax is slightly different for each tool, but the general idea is the same.
To upload a file using wget, the syntax is as follows:
wget --post-file=[file] [URL]
This will upload the specified file to the specified URL. If the file is to be uploaded to an FTP or SFTP server, the syntax is slightly different:
wget --post-file=[file] ftp://[username]:[password]@[server]/[file]
This will upload the specified file to the FTP or SFTP server using the specified username and password.
To upload a file using curl, the syntax is as follows:
curl -T [file] [URL]
This will upload the specified file to the specified URL. If the file is to be uploaded to an FTP or SFTP server, the syntax is slightly different:
curl -T [file] ftp://[username]:[password]@[server]/[file]
This will upload the specified file to the FTP or SFTP server using the specified username and password.
In conclusion, wget and curl are two powerful command line tools for downloading and uploading files over the internet. They are both available for Windows, and can be used from the command line in the same way as any other command line tool. They both support the HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies. They can also be used to upload files to FTP and SFTP servers.
