trurl(1)

trurl(1) — transpose URLs ✨ (version 0.16.1) 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

trurl - transpose URLs

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

trurl [options / URLs]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Okay bestie, listen. trurl parses, manipulates and outputs URLs and parts of URLs. It uses the RFC 3986 definition of URLs and it uses libcurl's URL parser to do so, which includes a few "extensions". The URL support is limited to "hierarchical" URLs, the ones that use :// separators after the scheme.

Typically you pass in one or more URLs and decide what of that you want output. Possibly modifying the URL as well.

trurl knows URLs and every URL consists of up to ten separate and independent components. These components can be extracted, removed and updated with trurl and they are referred to by their respective names: scheme, user, password, options, host, port, path, query, fragment and zoneid.

🧼 NORMALIZATION 🧼

When provided a URL to work with, trurl "normalizes" it. It means that individual URL components are URL decoded then URL encoded back again and set in the URL.

Example:

$ trurl 'http://ex%61mple:80/%62ath/a/../b?%2e%FF#tes%74'
http://example/bath/b?.%ff#test

✨ OPTIONS ✨

Options start with one or two dashes. Many of the options require an additional value next to them.

Any other argument is interpreted as a URL argument, and is treated as if it was following a --url option.

The first argument that is exactly two dashes (--), marks the end of options; any argument after the end of options is interpreted as a URL argument even if it starts with a dash.

Long options can be provided either as --flag argument or as --flag=argument.

• -a, --append [component]=[data] — Append data to a component. This can only append data to the path and the query components.

For path, this URL encodes and appends the new segment to the path, separated with a slash.

For query, this URL encodes and appends the new segment to the query, separated with an ampersand (&). If the appended segment contains an equal sign (=) that one is kept verbatim and both sides of the first occurrence are URL encoded separately.

• --accept-space — When set, trurl tries to accept spaces as part of the URL and instead URL encode such occurrences accordingly.

According to RFC 3986, a space cannot legally be part of a URL. This option provides a best-effort to convert the provided string into a valid URL.

• --as-idn — Converts a punycode ASCII hostname to its original International Domain Name in Unicode. If the hostname is not using punycode then the original hostname is used.
• --curl — Only accept URL schemes supported by libcurl.
• --default-port — When set, trurl uses the scheme's default port number for URLs with a known scheme, and without an explicit port number.

Note that trurl only knows default port numbers for URL schemes that are supported by libcurl.

Since, by default, trurl removes default port numbers from URLs with a known scheme, this option is pretty much ignored unless one of --get, --json, and --keep-port is not also specified.

• -f, --url-file [filename] — Read URLs to work on from the given file. Use the filename - (a single minus) to tell trurl to read the URLs from stdin.

Each line needs to be a single valid URL. trurl removes one carriage return character at the end of the line if present, trims off all the trailing space and tab characters, and skips all empty (after trimming) lines.

The maximum line length supported in a file like this is 4094 bytes. Lines that exceed that length are skipped, and a warning is printed to stderr when they are encountered.

• -g, --get [format] — Output text and URL data according to the provided format string. Components from the URL can be output when specified as {component} or [component], with the name of the part show within curly braces or brackets. You can not mix braces and brackets for this purpose in the same command line.

The following component names are available (case sensitive): url, scheme, user, password, options, host, port, path, query, fragment and zoneid.

{component} expands to nothing if the given component does not have a value.

Components are shown URL decoded by default.

URL decoding a component may cause problems to display it. Such problems make a warning get displayed unless --quiet is used.

trurl supports a range of different qualifiers, or prefixes, to the component that changes how it handles it:

• If url: is specified, like {url:path}, the component gets output URL encoded. As a shortcut, url: also works written as a single colon: {:path}.
• If strict: is specified, like {strict:path}, URL decode problems are turned into errors. In this stricter mode, a URL decode problem makes trurl stop what it is doing and return with exit code 10.
• If must: is specified, like {must:query}, it makes trurl return an error if the requested component does not exist in the URL. By default a missing component will just be shown blank.
• If default: is specified, like {default:url} or {default:port}, and the port is not explicitly specified in the URL, the scheme's default port is output if it is known.
• If puny: is specified, like {puny:url} or {puny:host}, the punycoded version of the hostname is used in the output. This option is mutually exclusive with idn:.
• If idn: is specified like {idn:url} or {idn:host}, the International Domain Name version of the hostname is used in the output if it is provided as a correctly encoded punycode version. This option is mutually exclusive with puny:.

If --default-port is specified, all formats are expanded as if they used default:; and if --punycode is used, all formats are expanded as if they used puny:. Also note that {url} is affected by the --keep-port option.

Hosts provided as IPv6 numerical addresses are provided within square brackets. Like [fe80::20c:29ff:fe9c:409b].

Hosts provided as IPv4 numerical addresses are normalized and provided as four dot-separated decimal numbers when output.

You can access specific keys in the query string using the format {query:key}. Then the value of the first matching key is output using a case sensitive match. When extracting a URL decoded query key that contains %00, such octet is replaced with a single period . in the output.

You can access specific keys in the query string and out all values using the format {query-all:key}. This looks for key case sensitively and outputs all values for that key space-separated.

The format string supports the following backslash sequences:

• \ - backslash
• \t - tab
• \n - newline
• \r - carriage return
• \{ - an open curly brace that does not start a variable
• \[ - an open bracket that does not start a variable

All other text in the format string is shown as-is.

• -h, --help — Show the help output.
• --iterate [component]=[item1 item2 ...] — Set the component to multiple values and output the result once for each iteration. Several combined iterations are allowed to generate combinations, but only one --iterate option per component. The listed items to iterate over should be separated by single spaces.

Example:

$ trurl example.com --iterate=scheme="ftp https" --iterate=port="22 80"
ftp://example.com:22/
ftp://example.com:80/
https://example.com:22/
https://example.com:80/

• --json — Outputs all set components of the URLs as JSON objects. All components of the URL that have data get populated in the parts object using their component names. See below for details on the format.

The URL components are provided URL decoded. Change that with --urlencode.

• --keep-port — By default, trurl removes default port numbers from URLs with a known scheme even if they are explicitly specified in the input URL. This options, makes trurl not remove them.

Example:

$ trurl https://example.com:443/ --keep-port
https://example.com:443/

• --no-guess-scheme — Disables libcurl's scheme guessing feature. URLs that do not contain a scheme are treated as invalid URLs.

Example:

$ trurl example.com --no-guess-scheme
trurl note: Bad scheme [example.com]

• --punycode — Uses the punycode version of the hostname, which is how International Domain Names are converted into plain ASCII. If the hostname is not using IDN, the regular ASCII name is used.

Example:

$ trurl http://åäö/ --punycode
http://xn--4cab6c/

• --qtrim [what] — Trims data off a query.

what is specified as a full name of a name/value pair, or as a word prefix (using a single trailing asterisk (*)) which makes trurl remove the tuples from the query string that match the instruction.

To match a literal trailing asterisk instead of using a wildcard, escape it with a backslash in front of it. Like \*.

• --query-separator [what] — Specify the single letter used for separating query pairs. The default is & but at least in the past sometimes semicolons ; or even colons : have been used for this purpose. If your URL uses something other than the default letter, setting the right one makes sure trurl can do its query operations properly.

Example:

$ trurl "https://curl.se?b=name:a=age" --sort-query --query-separator ":"
https://curl.se/?a=age:b=name

• --quiet — Suppress (some) notes and warnings.
• --redirect [URL] — Redirect the URL to this new location. The redirection is performed on the base URL, so, if no base URL is specified, no redirection is performed.

Example:

$ trurl --url https://curl.se/we/are.html --redirect ../here.html
https://curl.se/here.html

• --replace [data] — Replaces a URL query.

data can either take the form of a single value, or as a key/value pair in the shape foo=bar. If replace is called on an item that is not in the list of queries trurl ignores that item.

• also real quick — it URL encodes both sides of the = character in the given data argument. yeah. both. sides. 💅
• --replace-append [data] — literally the same vibe as --replace, bestie, except trurl will append a missing query string if it's not already in the query list. so instead of ghosting you, it just adds the thing 🫶
• -s, --set [component][:]=[data] — set this URL component. main character move 👑. Setting a blank string ("") clears the component from the URL.

The components you can set are: url, scheme, user, password, options, host, port, path, query, fragment and zoneid.

If you use a simple =-assignment, the data gets URL encoded when it's applied. If you use := instead, the data is assumed to already be URL encoded and gets stored as-is, no touch-ups.

If you use ?=, the set only happens if the component isn't already set. it's the "don't overwrite what's already there" protection, very respectful of boundaries ✨

And yeah you can combine : and ? into ?:= if that's the energy you want.

If no URL or --url-file argument is provided, trurl tries to build a URL from scratch using the components you handed it via the --set options. If not enough components are specified, this fails. no components, no URL, no cap 😭

• --sort-query — the "variable=content" tuplets in the query component get sorted in a case insensitive alphabetical order. this is the glow-up that makes two URLs identical when the only difference was that their query pairs were vibing in a different order 🌈
• --trim [component]=[what] — Deprecated: use --qtrim. like, it's giving legacy. 💀

Trims data off a component. Currently this can only trim a query component.

what is specified as a full word or as a word prefix (using a single trailing asterisk (*)), which makes trurl remove the tuples from the query string that match the instruction.

To match a literal trailing asterisk instead of using a wildcard, escape it with a backslash in front of it. Like \*. ✨

• --url [URL] — set the input URL to work with. The URL can be provided without a scheme, which then typically is not actually a legal URL, but trurl tries to figure out what you meant and guess what scheme to use (unless --no-guess-scheme is used). she's a mind reader, iykyk 🔮

Providing multiple URLs makes trurl act on all URLs in a serial fashion, one after another.

If the URL can't be parsed for whatever reason, trurl simply moves on to the next provided URL — unless --verify is used, in which case it does not let that slide.

• --urlencode — outputs the URL encoded version of components by default when using --get or --json.
• -v, --version — show version information and exit. bye bestie 👋
• --verify — when a URL is provided, return an error immediately if it doesn't parse as a valid URL. In normal cases, trurl can forgive a bad URL input (she's nice like that), but with this flag the forgiveness is off.

---

💫 URL COMPONENTS 💫

okay so this is the anatomy class, bestie. every piece of a URL, explained. let's go 🦋

🌸 scheme 🌸

This is the leading character sequence of a URL, excluding the "://" separator. It cannot be specified URL encoded.

A URL cannot exist without a scheme, but unless --no-guess-scheme is used, trurl guesses what scheme you intended when none was provided. she just knows 💅

Examples:

$ trurl https://odd/ -g '{scheme}'
https

$ trurl odd -g '{scheme}'
http

$ trurl odd -g '{scheme}' --no-guess-scheme
trurl note: Bad scheme [odd]

🌸 user 🌸

After the scheme separator, there can be a username provided. If it ends with a colon (:), there is a password provided. If it ends with an at character (@), there is no password provided in the URL.

Example:

$ trurl https://user%3a%40:secret@odd/ -g '{user}'
user:@

🌸 password 🌸

If the password ends with a semicolon (;) there is an options field following. This field is only accepted by trurl for URLs using the IMAP scheme.

Example:

$ trurl https://user:secr%65t@odd/ -g '{password}'
secret

🌸 options 🌸

This field can only end with an at character (@) that separates the options from the hostname.

$ trurl 'imap://user:pwd;giraffe@odd' -g '{options}'
giraffe

If the scheme is not IMAP, the giraffe part is instead considered part of the password:

$ trurl 'sftp://user:pwd;giraffe@odd' -g '{password}'
pwd;giraffe

We strongly advise users to %-encode ;, : and @ in URLs of course, to reduce the risk for confusions. fr fr, just encode them, save yourself the heartbreak 😭

🌸 host 🌸

The host component is the hostname or a numerical IP address. If a hostname is provided, it can be an International Domain Name with non-ASCII characters. A hostname can be provided URL encoded.

trurl provides options for working with the IDN hostnames either as IDN or in its punycode version.

Example, convert an IDN name to punycode in the output:

$ trurl http://åäö/ --punycode
http://xn--4cab6c/

Or the reverse, convert a punycode hostname into its IDN version:

$ trurl http://xn--4cab6c/ --as-idn
http://åäö/

If the URL's hostname starts with an open bracket ([) it's a numerical IPv6 address that also must end with a closing bracket (]). trurl normalizes IPv6 addreses. ✨

Example:

$ trurl 'http://[2001:9b1:0:0:0:0:7b97:364b]/'
http://[2001:9b1::7b97:364b]/

A numerical IPv4 address can be specified using one, two, three or four numbers separated with dots, and they can use decimal, octal or hexadecimal. trurl normalizes provided addresses and uses four dotted decimal numbers in its output.

Examples:

$ trurl http://646464646/
http://38.136.68.134/

$ trurl http://246.646/
http://246.0.2.134/

$ trurl http://246.46.646/
http://246.46.2.134/

$ trurl http://0x14.0xb3022/
http://20.11.48.34/

🌸 zoneid 🌸

If the provided host is an IPv6 address, it might contain a specific zoneid. A number or a network interface name normally.

Example:

$ trurl 'http://[2001:9b1::f358:1ba4:7b97:364b%enp3s0]/' -g '{zoneid}'
enp3s0

🌸 port 🌸

If the host ends with a colon (:) then a port number follows. It's a 16 bit decimal number that may not be URL encoded.

trurl knows the default port number for many URL schemes, so it can show port numbers for a URL even if none was explicitly used in the URL. With --default-port it can add the default port to a URL even when not provided. she's thorough like that 💅

Example:

$ trurl http:/a --default-port
http://a:80/

Similarly, trurl normally hides the port number if the given number is the default.

Example:

$ trurl http:/a:80
http://a/

But a user can make trurl keep the port even if it is the default, with --keep-port.

Example:

$ trurl http:/a:80 --keep-port
http://a:80/

🌸 path 🌸

A URL path is assumed to always start with and contain at least a slash (/), even if none is actually provided in the URL. always. even when you forget. 🫶

Example:

$ trurl http://xn--4cab6c -g '[path]'
/

When setting the path, trurl will inject a leading slash if none is provided:

$ trurl http://hello -s path="pony"
http://hello/pony

$ trurl http://hello -s path="/pony"
http://hello/pony

If the input path contains dotdot or dot-slash sequences, they are normalized away.

Example:

$ trurl http://hej/one/../two/../three/./four
http://hej/three/four

You can append a new segment to an existing path with --append like this:

$ trurl http://twelve/three?hello --append path=four
http://twelve/three/four?hello

🌸 query 🌸

The query part does not include the leading question mark (?) separator when extracted with trurl.

Example:

$ trurl http://horse?elephant -g '{query}'
elephant

Example, if you set the query with a leading question mark:

$ trurl http://horse?elephant -s "query=?elephant"
http://horse/?%3felephant

Query parts are often made up of a series of name=value pairs separated with ampersands (&), and trurl offers several ways to work with such. this is where she really pops off 🔥

Append a new name value pair to a URL with --append:

$ trurl http://host?name=hello --append query=search=life
http://host/?name=hello&search=life

You cam --replace the value of a specific existing name among the pairs:

$ trurl 'http://alpha?one=real&two=fake' --replace two=alsoreal
http://alpha/?one=real&two=alsoreal

If the specific name you want to replace perhaps doesn't exist in the URL, you can opt to replace or append the pair:

$ trurl 'http://alpha?one=real&two=fake' --replace-append three=alsoreal
http://alpha/?one=real&two=fake&three=alsoreal

In order to perhaps compare two URLs using query name value pairs, sorting them first at least increases the chances of it working:

$ trurl "http://alpha/?one=real&two=fake&three=alsoreal" --sort-query
http://alpha/?one=real&three=alsoreal&two=fake

Remove name/value pairs from the URL by specifying exact name or wildcard pattern with --qtrim:

$ trurl 'https://example.com?a12=hej&a23=moo&b12=foo' --qtrim a*'
https://example.com/?b12=foo

🌸 fragment 🌸

The fragment part does not include the leading hash sign (#) separator when extracted with trurl.

Example:

$ trurl http://horse#elephant -g '{fragment}'
elephant

Example, if you set the fragment with a leading hash sign:

$ trurl "http://horse#elephant" -s "fragment=#zebra"
http://horse/#%23zebra

The fragment part of a URL is for local purposes only. The data in there is never actually sent over the network when a URL is used for transfers. it stays home. it's a homebody. 🏠

🌸 url 🌸

trurl supports url as a named component for --get to allow for more powerful outputs, but of course it's not actually a "component" — it's the full URL 👑

Example:

$ trurl ftps://example.com:2021/p%61th -g '{url}'
ftps://example.com:2021/path

🌈 JSON output format 🌈

Okay bestie, when you pass --json, trurl gives you a JSON array with one or more objects. One object for each URL. Each URL JSON object has a bunch of properties — a series of key/value pairs. The exact set that shows up depends on the URL you handed over. 💅

• url — This key is in every object. It's the complete URL. It gets affected by --default-port, --keep-port, and --punycode.
• parts — This key is in every object too, and it holds an object with a key for each of the settable URL components. If a component is missing, that means it's not present in the URL. The parts are URL decoded unless you use --urlencode.
  • parts.scheme — The URL scheme.
  • parts.user — The username.
  • parts.password — The password.
  • parts.options — The options. Note that only a few URL schemes support the "options" component.
  • parts.host — The normalized hostname. It might be a UTF-8 name if an IDN name was used. It can also be a normalized IPv4 or IPv6 address. An IPv6 address always starts with a bracket ([) — and no other hostnames can contain such a symbol. If --punycode is used, the punycode version of the host is outputted instead.
  • parts.port — The provided port number as a string. If the port number was not provided in the URL, but the scheme is a known one, and --default-port is in use, the default port for that scheme is provided here.
  • parts.path — The path. Including the leading slash.
  • parts.query — The full query, excluding the question mark separator.
  • parts.fragment — The fragment, excluding the pound sign separator.
  • parts.zoneid — The zone id, which can only be present in an IPv6 address. When this key is present, then host is an IPv6 numerical address.
• params — This key contains an array of query key/value objects. Each such pair is listed with "key" and "value" and their respective contents in the output.

The key/values are extracted from the query where they are separated by ampersands (&) — or the user sets with --query-separator.

The query pairs are listed in the order of appearance in a left-to-right order, but can be made alpha-sorted with --sort-query.

It is only present if the URL has a query.

---

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

💖 Replace the hostname of a URL

$ trurl --url https://curl.se --set host=example.com
https://example.com/

✨ Create a URL by setting components

$ trurl --set host=example.com --set scheme=ftp
ftp://example.com/

🦋 Redirect a URL

$ trurl --url https://curl.se/we/are.html --redirect here.html
https://curl.se/we/here.html

🌸 Change port number

This also shows how trurl removes dot-dot sequences.

$ trurl --url https://curl.se/we/../are.html --set port=8080
https://curl.se:8080/are.html

🍓 Extract the path from a URL

$ trurl --url https://curl.se/we/are.html --get '{path}'
/we/are.html

🧚 Extract the port from a URL

This gets the default port based on the scheme if the port is not set in the URL.

$ trurl --url https://curl.se/we/are.html --get '{default:port}'
443

💜 Append a path segment to a URL

$ trurl --url https://curl.se/hello --append path=you
https://curl.se/hello/you

🔥 Append a query segment to a URL

$ trurl --url "https://curl.se?name=hello" --append query=search=string
https://curl.se/?name=hello&search=string

👑 Read URLs from stdin

$ cat urllist.txt | trurl --url-file -
\&...

🌈 Output JSON

$ trurl "https://fake.host/search?q=answers&user=me#frag" --json
[
  {
    "url": "https://fake.host/search?q=answers&user=me#frag",
    "parts": [
        "scheme": "https",
        "host": "fake.host",
        "path": "/search",
        "query": "q=answers&user=me"
        "fragment": "frag",
    ],
    "params": [
      {
        "key": "q",
        "value": "answers"
      },
      {
        "key": "user",
        "value": "me"
      }
    ]
  }
]

💀 Remove tracking tuples from query

$ trurl "https://curl.se?search=hey&utm_source=tracker" --qtrim "utm_*"
https://curl.se/?search=hey

⭐ Show a specific query key value

$ trurl "https://example.com?a=home&here=now&thisthen" -g '{query:a}'
home

🫶 Sort the key/value pairs in the query component

$ trurl "https://example.com?b=a&c=b&a=c" --sort-query
https://example.com?a=c&b=a&c=b

🎀 Work with a query that uses a semicolon separator

$ trurl "https://curl.se?search=fool;page=5" --qtrim "search" --query-separator ";"
https://curl.se?page=5

🌸 Accept spaces in the URL path

$ trurl "https://curl.se/this has space/index.html" --accept-space
https://curl.se/this%20has%20space/index.html

🦋 Create multiple variations of a URL with different schemes

$ trurl "https://curl.se/path/index.html" --iterate "scheme=http ftp sftp"
http://curl.se/path/index.html
ftp://curl.se/path/index.html
sftp://curl.se/path/index.html

---

💀 EXIT CODES 💀

trurl returns a non-zero exit code to indicate problems.

• 1 — A problem with --url-file
• 2 — A problem with --append
• 3 — A command line option misses an argument
• 4 — A command line option mistake or an illegal option combination.
• 5 — A problem with --set
• 6 — Out of memory
• 7 — Could not output a valid URL
• 8 — A problem with --qtrim
• 9 — If --verify is set and the input URL cannot parse.
• 10 — A problem with --get
• 11 — A problem with --iterate
• 12 — A problem with --replace or --replace-append

---

🌐 WWW 🌐

https://curl.se/trurl

---

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• curl(1)
• wcurl(1)

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That's the whole page, bestie! Source/version: trurl — date: 2025-05-12 — section trurl(1). Stay slaying those URLs 💅✨