Use the target filename from the server
HTTP servers have the option to provide a header named Content-Disposition:
in responses. That header may contain a suggested filename for the contents
delivered, and curl can be told to use that hint to name its local file. The
-J / --remote-header-name enables this. If you also use the -O option,
it makes curl use the filename from the URL by default and only if
there is actually a valid Content-Disposition header available, it switches to
saving using that name.
-J has some problems and risks associated with it that users need to be
aware of:
-
It only uses the rightmost part of the suggested filename, so any path or directories the server suggests are stripped out.
-
Since the filename is entirely selected by the server, curl might overwrite any preexisting local file in your current directory if the server happens to provide such a filename (unless you use
--no-clobber). -
filename encoding and character sets issues. curl does not decode the name in any way, so you may end up with a URL-encoded filename where a browser would otherwise decode it to something more readable using a sensible character set.