httpcat 0.0.1

# `httpcat`


``httpcat`` is a simple utility for constructing raw HTTP
requests on the command line.


## Why?

Sometimes it is useful to be create an actual raw
[HTTP request](https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec5.html)
on the command line:

* To debug a server issue
* To test the handling of invalid HTTP requests
* To learn how HTTP works under the hood

In such cases, existing CLI HTTP clients—such as
[`httpie`](https://httpie.org),
[`curl`](https://curl.haxx.se/),
or [`wget`](https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/)
—are too high-level as they provide
an abstraction layer and one has no complete control over what
data that gets written to the socket.

Low-lever clients, such as the popular
[`netcat`](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcat), are better suited for this
job.

However, the syntax of HTTP requires headers to be separated with
`\r\n`, which make is it difficult to produce on the command line.
A typical solution involves the use of `echo`, which is inconvenient:


```bash
$ echo -ne 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nContent-Length: 5\r\n\r\nhello' | \
nc localhost 8000
```

`httpcat` make this easier.


## How it works

1. Reads command arguments as lines and then lines from ``stdin``
2. Auto-completes them, if necessary
3. Writes them to ``stdout``


## Features

* Automatic ``\r\n`` completion
* Automatic `Method` completion in `Request-Line`
* Automatic `HTTP-Version` completion in `Request-Line`


## Usage

Interactively create a request and send it with `nc`:
```bash
$ httpcat | nc httpbin.org 80
POST /post HTTP/1.1
-> POST /post HTTP/1.1\r\n
Host: httpbin.org
-> Host: httpbin.org\r\n
Content-Length: 6
-> Content-Length: 6\r\n

-> \r\n [headers written]
Hello
```

```http
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:47:16 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 230
Connection: keep-alive
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true

{
"args": {},
"data": "Hello\n",
"files": {},
"form": {},
"headers": {
"Content-Length": "6",
"Host": "httpbin.org"
},
"json": null,
"origin": "89.103.111.135",
"url": "http://httpbin.org/post"
}
```

Specify headers and body on the command line.
Note that the omitted `HTTP-Version` is auto-completed:

```bash
$ httpcat 'POST /post' 'Host: httpbin.org' 'Content-Length: 5' '' 'Hello' | nc httpbin.org 80
-> POST /post HTTP/1.1\r\n
-> Host: httpbin.org\r\n
-> Content-Length: 5\r\n
-> \r\n [headers written]
```

Specify headers and body on the command line.
Note that the omitted `Method` is set to `GET` and `HTTP-Version`
is auto-completed:

```bash
$ httpcat '/' 'Host: example.org' '' | nc example.org 80
-> GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
-> Host: example.org\r\n
-> \r\n [headers written]
```

### Dependencies

* Python 3


### Installation


```bash
pip install httpcat
```

Alternatively just download `httpcat.py` manually invoke it as `./httpcat.py`
instead of `httpcat`.


### Tests

```bash
python setup.py test
```