nano cURL - a minimalist http(s) client.
ncurl(
url,
convert = TRUE,
follow = FALSE,
method = NULL,
headers = NULL,
data = NULL,
response = NULL,
timeout = NULL,
tls = NULL
)the URL address.
[default TRUE] logical value whether to attempt conversion
of the received raw bytes to a character vector. Set to FALSE if
downloading non-text data.
[default FALSE] logical value whether to automatically follow
redirects (not applicable for async requests). If FALSE, the redirect
address is returned as response header 'Location'.
(optional) the HTTP method as a character string. Defaults to 'GET' if not specified, and could also be 'POST', 'PUT' etc.
(optional) a named character vector specifying the HTTP
request headers, for example: c(Authorization = "Bearer APIKEY", "Content-Type" = "text/plain")
A non-character or non-named vector will be ignored.
(optional) request data to be submitted. Must be a character string or raw vector, and other objects are ignored. If a character vector, only the first element is taken. When supplying binary data, the appropriate 'Content-Type' header should be set to specify the binary format.
(optional) a character vector specifying the response headers
to return e.g. c("date", "server"). These are case-insensitive and
will return NULL if not present. A non-character vector will be ignored.
(optional) integer value in milliseconds after which the transaction times out if not yet complete.
(optional) applicable to secure HTTPS sites only, a client TLS
Configuration object created by tls_config(). If missing or NULL,
certificates are not validated.
Named list of 3 elements:
$status - integer HTTP repsonse status code (200 - OK).
Use status_code() for a translation of the meaning.
$headers - named list of response headers supplied in response,
or NULL otherwise. If the status code is within the 300 range, i.e. a
redirect, the response header 'Location' is automatically appended to
return the redirect address.
$data - the response body, as a character string if
convert = TRUE (may be further parsed as html, json, xml etc. as
required), or a raw byte vector if FALSE (use writeBin() to save as a
file).
ncurl_aio() for asynchronous http requests; ncurl_session() for
persistent connections.
ncurl(
"https://postman-echo.com/get",
convert = FALSE,
response = c("date", "content-type"),
timeout = 1200L
)
#> $status
#> [1] 200
#>
#> $headers
#> $headers$date
#> [1] "Tue, 18 Nov 2025 14:48:19 GMT"
#>
#> $headers$`content-type`
#> [1] "application/json; charset=utf-8"
#>
#>
#> $data
#> [1] 7b 22 61 72 67 73 22 3a 7b 7d 2c 22 68 65 61 64 65 72 73 22 3a 7b 22 68 6f
#> [26] 73 74 22 3a 22 70 6f 73 74 6d 61 6e 2d 65 63 68 6f 2e 63 6f 6d 22 2c 22 61
#> [51] 63 63 65 70 74 2d 65 6e 63 6f 64 69 6e 67 22 3a 22 67 7a 69 70 2c 20 62 72
#> [76] 22 2c 22 78 2d 66 6f 72 77 61 72 64 65 64 2d 70 72 6f 74 6f 22 3a 22 68 74
#> [101] 74 70 73 22 7d 2c 22 75 72 6c 22 3a 22 68 74 74 70 73 3a 2f 2f 70 6f 73 74
#> [126] 6d 61 6e 2d 65 63 68 6f 2e 63 6f 6d 2f 67 65 74 22 7d
#>
ncurl(
"https://postman-echo.com/put",
method = "PUT",
headers = c(Authorization = "Bearer APIKEY"),
data = "hello world",
timeout = 1500L
)
#> $status
#> [1] 200
#>
#> $headers
#> NULL
#>
#> $data
#> [1] "{\"args\":{},\"data\":\"hello world\",\"files\":{},\"form\":{},\"headers\":{\"host\":\"postman-echo.com\",\"authorization\":\"Bearer APIKEY\",\"accept-encoding\":\"gzip, br\",\"x-forwarded-proto\":\"https\",\"content-length\":\"11\",\"content-type\":\"application/json\"},\"json\":null,\"url\":\"https://postman-echo.com/put\"}"
#>
ncurl(
"https://postman-echo.com/post",
method = "POST",
headers = c(`Content-Type` = "application/json"),
data = '{"key":"value"}',
timeout = 1500L
)
#> $status
#> [1] 200
#>
#> $headers
#> NULL
#>
#> $data
#> [1] "{\"args\":{},\"data\":{\"key\":\"value\"},\"files\":{},\"form\":{},\"headers\":{\"host\":\"postman-echo.com\",\"content-type\":\"application/json\",\"accept-encoding\":\"gzip, br\",\"x-forwarded-proto\":\"https\",\"content-length\":\"15\"},\"json\":{\"key\":\"value\"},\"url\":\"https://postman-echo.com/post\"}"
#>