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cmdline/differences.md: split into a separate section from cmdline.md
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# Differences | ||
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## Binaries and different platforms | ||
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The command-line tool `curl` is a *binary executable file*. The curl project | ||
does not by itself distribute or provide binaries. Binary files are highly | ||
system specific and oftentimes also bound to specific system versions. | ||
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Different curl versions, built by different people on different platforms | ||
using different third party libraries with different built-time options makes | ||
the tool offer different features in different places. In addition, curl is | ||
continuously developed, so newer versions of the tool are likely to have more | ||
and better features than the older ones. | ||
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## Command lines, quotes and aliases | ||
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There are many different command lines, shells and prompts in which curl can | ||
be used. They all come with their own sets of limitations, rules and | ||
guidelines to follow. The curl tool is designed to work with any of them | ||
without causing troubles but there may be times when your specific command | ||
line system does not match what others use or what is otherwise documented. | ||
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One way that command-line systems differ, for example, is how you can put | ||
quotes around arguments such as to embed spaces or special symbols. In | ||
most Unix-like shells you use double quotes (") and single quotes (') | ||
depending if you want to allow variable expansions or not within the quoted | ||
string, but on Windows there is no support for the single quote version. | ||
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In some environments, like PowerShell on Windows, the authors of the command | ||
line system decided they know better and "help" the user to use another tool | ||
instead of curl when `curl` is typed, by providing an alias that takes | ||
precedence when a command line is executed. In order to use curl properly with | ||
PowerShell, you need to type in its full name including the extension: | ||
"curl.exe". | ||
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Different command-line environments will also have different maximum command | ||
line lengths and force the users to limit how large amount of data that can be | ||
put into a single line. curl adapts to this by offering a way to provide | ||
command-line options through a file or stdin using the [-K | ||
option](configfile.md). |