Why does curl fail in this situation?
curl, download, unix
Solution
The `&` in the url is telling bash that everything before it is a command that should be run in the background. So everything after each `&` is interpretted as a new command to run in the background, which is why you see a bunch of bogus processes get started when you try to run your command. Try putting the url in single quotes `'http://....'` to avoid bash interpretting the $ and & characters as special characters:
curl -o test.txt 'http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sviewer/viewer.cgi?tool=portal&sendto=on&log$=seqview&db=nuccore&dopt=gilist&sort=&query_key=1&qty=12654729&filter=all'
Problem
I am trying to download the file from the following link: ``` http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sviewer/viewer.cgi?tool=portal&sendto=on&log$=seqview&db=nuccore&dopt=gilist&sort=&query_key=1&qty=12654729&filter=all ``` When pasting the above link in the address bar in a web browser(Chrome), it allows me to save file as "sequence.gi.txt". But when I try that in a terminal, I get the following error: ``` curl -o test.txt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sviewer/viewer.cgi?tool=portal&sendto=on&log$=seqview&db=nuccore&dopt=gilist&sort=&query_key=1&qty=12654729&filter=all [1] 30036 [2] 30037 [3] 30038 [4] 30039 [5] 30040 [6] 30041 [7] 30042 [8] 30043 -bash: log$=seqview: command not found % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 101 7297 0 7297 0 0 59633 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 79315 [1] Done curl -L -o test.txt http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sviewer/viewer.cgi?tool=portal [2] Done sendto=on [3] Exit 127 log$=seqview [4] Done db=nuccore [5] Done dopt=gilist [6] Done sort= [7]- Done query_key=1 [8]+ Done qty=12654729 ``` How do I download the file in the command line?