Get Redirect URL with cURL
URL redirects can be glorious or annoying depending on which side of them you are on and which side you want to be on. Redirects are helpful for vanity URLs (useful in advertising) but sometimes they're annoying in that they could potentially break your code if you encounter a redirect you weren't anticipating.
The useful and amazing cURL command line utility allows you to fetch an address and return its final destination URL:
# "/css" doesn't exist but WordPress tries to find the closest match
# and then redirects to it ("/css-animation-callback")
curl -Ls -w %{url_effective} -o /dev/null https://davidwalsh.name/css
# Outputs: https://davidwalsh.name/css-animation-callback
The url_effective variable is what we're after. The L directive tells cURL to follow redirects, the s directive tells cURL to be silent (i.e. not output the page contents). You provide the URL, cURL follows it to its endpoint -- easy!
![Convert XML to JSON with JavaScript]()
If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been working on a super top secret mobile application using Appcelerator Titanium. The experience has been great: using JavaScript to create easy to write, easy to test, native mobile apps has been fun. My...
![9 More Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos]()
With Firefox OS, asm.js, and the push for browser performance improvements, canvas and WebGL technologies are opening a world of possibilities. I featured 9 Mind-Blowing Canvas Demos and then took it up a level with 9 Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos, but I want to outdo...
![PHP / MooTools 1.2 Accordion Helper]()
The MooTools Accordion plugin seems to be the plugin that people seem to have the most problems with. It's an awesome plugin, so I can see why so many people want to use it, but I think that may be part of the problem.
![CSS content and attr]()
CSS is becoming more and more powerful but in the sense that it allows us to do the little things easily. There have been larger features added like transitions, animations, and transforms, but one feature that goes under the radar is generated content. You saw a...
Follow a URL using JavaScript: https://www.npmjs.com/package/linkfollower