This is a wrapper around the 'curl' command-line tool that adds a few useful features.

gourl.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$#" == "0" ]; then
	echo "usage: $0 [CURL FLAGS|--json FILE|--https|--dry-run]* URL" >&2
	echo "You can set the BASE_URL environment variable; if you do, all relative URLs will be have the BASE_URL appended in front of them. (Note that this appends blindly the two strings together, doing no resolution work.)" >&2
	exit 1
fi

args=("$@")
verbatim_args=()
((last_arg = $# - 1))
((j = 0))
for (( i = 0; i < $# - 1; i++ )); do
	((j++))
	if [ "${args[$i]}" == "--json" ]; then
		verbatim_args[$j]="--data-binary"
		verbatim_args[$j + 1]=@"${args[$i + 1]}"
		verbatim_args[$j + 2]="-H"
		verbatim_args[$j + 3]="Content-Type: application/json"
		
		(( j += 3 ))
		(( i++ ))
	elif [ "${args[$i]}" == "--dry-run" ]; then
		ILABS_DRY_RUN=YES
	elif [ "${args[$i]}" == "--https" ]; then
		echo "Will use HTTPS if the final URL expands to '...http://...'."
		turn_http_to_https=YES
	else
		verbatim_args[$j]="${args[$i]}"
	fi	
done

url="${args[$last_arg]}"
if [[ ! "$url" =~ "://" ]]; then
	url="$BASE_URL""${args[$last_arg]}"
fi

if [[ "$turn_http_to_https" == "YES" && "$url" =~ "http://" ]]; then
	url="https://${url:7}"
	echo " => Using HTTPS url: $url"
fi

if [ "$ILABS_CREDENTIALS" != "" ]; then
	credentials=("-u" "$ILABS_CREDENTIALS")
else
	credentials=()
fi

if [ "$ILABS_DRY_RUN" == "YES" ]; then
	echo curl -D- "${verbatim_args[@]}" "${credentials[@]}" "$url"
else
	set -ax
	curl -D- "${verbatim_args[@]}" "${credentials[@]}" "$url"
fi