Advanced Usage

Binary Data

httpaste supports encoding. Encode your data as Base64, Base85, Base32, or Base16 and provide an encoding specifier.

$ cat my.pdf | base64 | curl "http://localhost:8080/paste/public?encoding=base64"
http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6

When getting pastes, you may provide a MIME type, if a client deduces the encoding by looking at the HTTP ‘Content-Type’ header.

$ curl "https://p.victoryk.it/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6?mime=application/pdf"

Custom Expiration

Set a paste’s lifetime to make it expire after a specified amount of time. The lifetime must be provided in minutes and cannot be less than 1. A lifetime of 0 will evaluate to a lifetime 1.

$ echo "My paste expires after reading" | curl "http://localhost:8080/paste/public?lifetime=360" -F "data=<-"
http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6

Burn-After-Read Expiration

Set a paste’s lifetime to <0 to make it expire right after reading

$ echo "My paste expires after reading" | curl "http://localhost:8080/paste/public?lifetime=-1" -F "data=<-"
http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6

$ curl http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6
My paste expires after reading
$ curl http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6
{"detail":"Paste expired","status":410,"title":"Gone"}

Syntax Higlighting

You can apply syntax highlighting to a multitude of formats. Consult the pygments documentation for valid specifiers.

$ curl "http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6?syntax=terraform"

Highlighting, by default, will be formatted for 256 color terminals. You can also change the formatting.

$ curl "http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6?syntax=terraform&format=html"

You can also add line numbers to the output.

$ curl "http://localhost:8080/paste/public/5Rt3E3n6?syntax=terraform&format=html&linenos=true"