[SOLVED] Running curl.exe in PowerShell

Issue

I am trying to recreate a working curl command in PowerShell 5.1, but when I run it from the script, it errors out. If I pipe out the constructed command to a text file and run it as-is in a command shell it works. I resorted to attempting curl in PowerShell because I have been unable to get the multipart/form-data to work with the Invoke-RestMethod function. Here is the code I'm using, and the error message is shown below. This is on Windows 10 machine. In a nutshell, this is to upload a zip file to a remote server.

$accessToken = '<Bearer token value from prior API call>'
$inputFile   = 'C:\MyFolder1\MyFolder2\MyFile.zip'
$curlCmd     = 'C:\Curl\bin\curl.exe'
$uriImport   = 'https://api.somecompany.com/import'

$curlArgs = '-X', 'POST',
             '--header', '"Content-Type: multipart/form-data"',
             '--header', '"Accept: application/json"', 
             '--header', -join('"Authorization: Bearer ', $accessToken, '"'),
             '--form', -join('"files=@', $inputFile, ';type=application/zip"'),
             -join('"', $uriImport, '"'), '-s'

Write-Host "$curlCmd $cURLargs"
"$curlCmd $curlArgs" | Out-File 'C:\MyFolder\MyFolder2\Curl_Output.txt'

& $curlCmd $curlArgs

The error PoSH returns:

curl.exe :   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
At C:\CurlTesting.ps1:65 char:9
+         & $curCmd $cURLargs
+         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (  % Total    % ...  Time  Current:String) [], RemoteException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NativeCommandError

                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:01 --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:02 --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:03 --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:04 --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:05 --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:--  0:00:06 --:--:--     0
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: multipart
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: application
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: Bearer
curl: (3) URL using bad/illegal format or missing URL

I have tried constructing the quotes with both single and double, but it still errors out; the Windows command prompt does require double-quotes. When I run this same constructed script from a command window (cmd.exe), it runs and I don't get all of that output nor the error - just the expected value from the API.

What am I doing wrong?

Here is the modified, slimmed-down version of the code I got working:

$accessToken = '<Bearer token value from prior API call>'
$inputFile   = 'C:\MyFolder1\MyFolder2\MyFile.zip'
$uriImport   = 'https://api.somecompany.com/import'

curl.exe -X POST `
        --header "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" `
        --header "Accept: application/json" `
        --header "Authorization: Bearer $accessToken" `
        --form "filename=@$inputFile;type=application/zip" `
        -s

Solution

This is what process monitor says is running. It seems ok to me. I don't have that curl but windows 10 (since 1803) comes with curl.exe now. Beware the curl alias in ps 5.

"C:\windows\system32\curl.exe" -X POST --header "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" --header "Accept: application/json" --header "Authorization: Bearer <Bearer token value from prior API call>" --form "files=@C:\MyFolder1\MyFolder2\MyFile.zip;type=application/zip" "https://api.somecompany.com/import" -s

I would run it this way. It's possible that powershell could lose doublequotes to an external command, that you would need to backslash, but this is as much as I can reproduce. It doesn't look like you're running it in silent mode, "-s".

C:\Curl\bin\curl.exe -X POST --header "Content-Type: multipart/form-data" --header "Accept: application/json" --header "Authorization: Bearer $accessToken" --form "files=@$inputFile;type=application/zip" $uriImport -s

Answered By - js2010

Answer Checked By - Marilyn (WPSolving Volunteer)