A cURL-to-code converter turns a curl command into the equivalent request written in a real programming language — so you can lift an API example straight out of documentation and drop it into your project. Paste a command above, pick a target (JavaScript fetch, axios, Python requests, or Go net/http), and copy the generated snippet. Everything happens in your browser; the command is never sent anywhere.
What does this tool do?
API docs, browser dev tools (“Copy as cURL”), and bug reports all love to hand you a curl command. That is great for a quick test in a terminal, but useless once you need the same request inside an application. This converter parses the command — pulling apart the method, URL, headers, request body and authentication — and re-emits it as idiomatic code for the language you choose. The heavy lifting is a small shell-style parser that understands quoting and line continuations, so multi-line commands copied from a README work without hand-editing.
What it parses
The tool focuses on the flags that appear in real-world API examples:
| curl flag | Meaning |
|---|---|
-X, --request |
HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, …) |
-H, --header |
A request header, split on the first colon |
-d, --data, --data-raw, --data-binary |
The request body |
--data-urlencode |
A body field that gets URL-encoded |
-u, --user |
HTTP basic authentication as user:password |
-G, --get |
Send the data as a query string instead of a body |
-A, -e, -b |
Shortcuts for User-Agent, Referer and Cookie headers |
When no method is given, the tool infers it exactly as curl does: GET normally, or POST when a data flag is present. It also mirrors a subtle curl default — using -d without your own Content-Type means curl sends application/x-www-form-urlencoded, so the generated code includes that header to keep the request truly equivalent.
What it does not do (on purpose)
Honesty matters more than a green checkmark. A few things simply cannot be done correctly in a browser, so the tool does not fake them:
- File references such as
-d @payload.jsonor-T upload.bin— a web page cannot read files off your disk, so the literal is kept and a note is shown. Swap in the real content. - Client certificates, proxies, and timeouts (
--cert,-x,--max-time, and similar) are recognised so they do not break parsing, but they are not translated into code. The status line lists any flag that was skipped. - Signing or verifying anything — the converter only rewrites the request you gave it.
Where a flag cannot be represented faithfully, you get a note rather than silent, wrong output.
A worked example
Given this command:
curl -X POST https://api.example.com/v1/users
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-u admin:s3cret
-d '{"name":"Ada Lovelace","role":"engineer"}'the JavaScript target produces a fetch call with a method of POST, the JSON Content-Type header, an Authorization: Basic … header built from the credentials, and the JSON string as the body. Switch the target to Python and the same request comes out as a requests.request() call with a headers dictionary and an auth tuple; switch to Go and you get a net/http request using strings.NewReader and req.SetBasicAuth. The data is identical — only the syntax changes.
When to use it
Reach for it whenever you are moving from “it works in my terminal” to “it works in my code”: porting an API sample into a script, translating a “Copy as cURL” export from your browser into a test, or teaching a request to a teammate who lives in a different language. Because every conversion runs locally, it is also safe to use on an internal network with no connectivity — once the page has loaded, you can disconnect and it keeps working.
A note on privacy
This tool runs entirely in your browser and makes no network calls. Your command, including any header, token or password inside it, is parsed on your device and never transmitted or logged. The generated code embeds credentials inline the way curl does, so remember to replace real secrets with placeholders before you share a snippet. For the most sensitive commands, prefer a throwaway credential while you satisfy yourself the tool behaves as described.