Provided by: trurl_0.16.1-2_amd64 
NAME
trurl - transpose URLs
SYNOPSIS
trurl [options / URLs]
DESCRIPTION
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.
trurl URL encodes both sides of the = character in the given input data argument.
--replace-append [data]
Works the same as --replace, but trurl appends a missing query string if it is not in the query
list already.
-s, --set [component][:]=[data]
Set this URL component. Setting blank string ("") clears the component from the URL.
The following components can be set: url, scheme, user, password, options, host, port, path,
query, fragment and zoneid.
If a simple =-assignment is used, the data is URL encoded when applied. If := is used, the data is
assumed to already be URL encoded and stored as-is.
If ?= is used, the set is only performed if the component is not already set. It avoids
overwriting any already set data.
You can also combine : and ? into ?:= if desired.
If no URL or --url-file argument is provided, trurl tries to create a URL using the components
provided by the --set options. If not enough components are specified, this fails.
--sort-query
The "variable=content" tuplets in the query component are sorted in a case insensitive
alphabetical order. This helps making URLs identical that otherwise only had their query pairs in
different orders.
--trim [component]=[what]
Deprecated: use --qtrim.
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 may be provided without a scheme, which then typically is
not actually a legal URL but trurl tries to figure out what is meant and guess what scheme to use
(unless --no-guess-scheme is used).
Providing multiple URLs makes trurl act on all URLs in a serial fashion.
If the URL cannot be parsed for whatever reason, trurl simply moves on to the next provided URL -
unless --verify is used.
--urlencode
Outputs URL encoded version of components by default when using --get or --json.
-v, --version
Show version information and exit.
--verify
When a URL is provided, return error immediately if it does not parse as a valid URL. In normal
cases, trurl can forgive a bad URL input.
URL COMPONENTS
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 that was intended if none was provided.
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 advice users to %-encode ;, : and @ in URLs of course to reduce the risk for
confusions.
host The host component is the hostname or a numerical IP address. If a hostname is provided, it can be
an International Domain Name 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 is a numerical IPv6 address that also
must end with a closing bracket (]). trurl normalizes IPv6 addresses.
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 is 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 provide.
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.
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.
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 does not 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.
url trurl supports url as a named component for --get to allow for more powerful outputs, but of
course it is not actually a "component"; it is the full URL.
Example:
$ trurl ftps://example.com:2021/p%61th -g '{url}'
ftps://example.com:2021/path
JSON output format
The --json option outputs a JSON array with one or more objects. One for each URL. Each URL JSON object
contains a number of properties, a series of key/value pairs. The exact set present depends on the given
URL.
url This key exists in every object. It is the complete URL. Affected by --default-port, --keep-port,
and --punycode.
parts This key exists in every object, and contains an object with a key for each of the settable URL
components. If a component is missing, it means it is not present in the URL. The parts are URL
decoded unless --urlencode is used.
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)
trurl 2025-07-19 trurl(1)