gitautomationgithub-apigist

How to upload a file to a Github gist from the terminal?


I usually paste error reports and logs on Gist at Github, to exchange programming relevant debug information. Gist doesn't have a button to upload a file. So sometimes it is not so convenient to copy and paste your large errorreports into gists textarea for input.

Is there a way to upload a file from the commandline into a new Gist in your Gist account?

also creating a temporary git repository for the file to upload would help, I would automate this in a script then.

In the end I would like to automate posting debug information of my programming project on github with one bash script


Solution

  • Here is a solution that works for me on Bash/Dash to create anonymous gist (very probably not bullet-proof):

    # 0. Your file name
    FNAME=some.file
    
    # 1. Somehow sanitize the file content
    #    Remove \r (from Windows end-of-lines),
    #    Replace tabs by \t
    #    Replace " by \"
    #    Replace EOL by \n
    CONTENT=$(sed -e 's/\r//' -e's/\t/\\t/g' -e 's/"/\\"/g' "${FNAME}" | awk '{ printf($0 "\\n") }')
    
    # 2. Build the JSON request
    read -r -d '' DESC <<EOF
    {
      "description": "some description",
      "public": true,
      "files": {
        "${FNAME}": {
          "content": "${CONTENT}"
        }
      }
    }
    EOF
    
    # 3. Use curl to send a POST request
    curl -X POST -d "${DESC}" "https://api.github.com/gists"
    

    If you need to create a gist associated with your github account, (for basic authentication) replace the last line by:

    curl -u "${GITHUB_USERNAME}" -X POST -d "${DESC}" "https://api.github.com/gists"
    

    For more advanced authentification schemes, please see https://developer.github.com/v3/#authentication