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I am looking at an example of a curl command that uses the @ symbol before the filename to post data to the server.

curl http://localhost/ --data-binary @file.txt

What does this mean? Does it insert the contents of the file into the command? Is it specific to curl?

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It is specific to curl. From man curl:

--data-binary <data>
  (HTTP) This posts data exactly as specified with no extra processing whatsoever.
  If you start the data with the letter @, the rest should be a filename.  Data is
  posted in a similar manner as --data-ascii does, except that newlines are preserved
  and conversions are never done.

  If this option is used several times, the ones following the first will append data
  as described in -d, --data.
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    I should have looked there. I was expecting it to be a shell thing though. Thanks a million. Commented Jul 14, 2014 at 14:55
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    If you came here to learn about the @: it has multiple uses. Not just for --data-binary. Check the man-page. Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 14:40

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