'Using curl in a bash script and getting curl: (3) Illegal characters found in URL

So I have a very simple bash script that is curl'ing to an auth server for a header. The header url is written to a var and then used in the next curl call. When using the var set in the first curl call I am getting "curl: (3) Illegal characters found in URL". I am able to echo the var and all looks good, I am even able to reset the var (in my example below) and it works.

The Bash script

URL=$(curl -i -X GET -H "X-Auth-User: MyUserna,e" -H "X-Auth-Key: MyAPIKey" "https://urlToAuthServer.tld/auth/v1.0/" | grep "X-Storage-Url:" | awk '{print $2}')

curl -X GET -H "X-Auth-Token: MyAuthTok" "${URL}/folder/myfile.txt" -o ./myfile.txt

When running the above example I get:

curl: (3) Illegal characters found in URL

The URL var looks like this (no illegal chars)

https://somesecureurl.com/auth/AUTH_67383834-45245453-g34g34t5-34534

When I do this in terminal it works:

$ URL=$(curl -i -X GET -H "X-Auth-User: MyUserna,e" -H "X-Auth-Key: MyAPIKey" "https://urlToAuthServer.tld/auth/v1.0/" | grep "X-Storage-Url:" | awk '{print $2}')

$ echo $URL

https://somesecureurl.com/auth/AUTH_67383834-45245453-g34g34t5-34534

Now I copy and paste the string and reasign it to URL like so (again all in terminal):

>$ URL="https://somesecureurl.com/auth/AUTH_67383834-45245453-g34g34t5-34534"
>$ curl -X GET -H "X-Auth-Token: MyAuthTok" "${URL}/folder/myfile.txt" -o ./myfile.txt

It works.

So why am I getting the "curl: (3) Illegal characters found in URL" error in the first example?

Update I ran this: printf %s "$URL" | xxd

Here is the output (addressed changed up you get the idea)

0000000: 6874 7470 733a 2f2f 6461 6c30 352e 6f62  https://server.ob
0000010: 6a65 6374 7374 6f72 6167 652e 736f 6674  jectstorage.lite
0000020: 6c61 7965 722e 6e65 742f 7631 2f41 5554  sabers.com/v1/AUT
0000030: 485f 6665 3235 3339 3434 2d38 6433 322d  H_aE2563981-7d32-
0000040: 3432 3138 2d61 6566 632d 6665 6638 3465  4201-bdoi-fef94a
0000050: 6166 3331 6232 0d                        ag11c8.


Solution 1:[1]

The $URL contains a \r (CR) at the end (0d). Remove it with

URL=${URL%$'\r'}

before using it with curl.

Solution 2:[2]

I had the same problem, but it was caused by me having created the script through Windows, which meant that the end of line had an unnecessary \r.

A simple dos to unix conversion fixed it.

dos2unix <scriptname>

Solution 3:[3]

stripping away trailing \r

tr -d '\r' < test.sh > testWithoutR.sh

Solution 4:[4]

It could be an enter at the end of the file. Try to remove it or delete it, note that the enter character is not something view-able....

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 choroba
Solution 2 ianiver9
Solution 3
Solution 4 jeff porter