Start a contact export via command line CURL command

[JWCompton]

Hello all,

I am trying to do something simple - start a backup of contacts from the Windows command line. In this section of the API docs, Export Contacts to a File, I have tested my JSON and it is valid and starts the backup I want. However, after searching for over an hour online and trying various code excerpts, I haven't been able to get one working.

Below is what I feel was my closest attempt. 

curl -v -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST \ -d '{"list_ids": [ "REDACTED"]}' https://api.cc.email/v3/contact_exports/?api_key=REDACTED

And this was the command line response:

Note: Unnecessary use of -X or --request, POST is already inferred.
* Rebuilt URL to: \/
* Could not resolve host: \
* Closing connection 0
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: \
curl: (3) [globbing] bad range specification in column 2
curl: (3) [globbing] unmatched close brace/bracket in column 666
Note: Unnecessary use of -X or --request, POST is already inferred.
*   Trying 99.84.168.38...
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Connected to api.cc.email (99.84.168.38) port 443 (#1)
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 1/3)
* schannel: checking server certificate revocation
* schannel: sending initial handshake data: sending 177 bytes...
* schannel: sent initial handshake data: sent 177 bytes
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 2/3)
* schannel: failed to receive handshake, need more data
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 2/3)
* schannel: encrypted data got 4096
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 4096 length 4096
* schannel: encrypted data length: 4026
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 4026 length 4096
* schannel: received incomplete message, need more data
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 2/3)
* schannel: encrypted data got 1024
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 5050 length 5050
* schannel: encrypted data length: 224
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 224 length 5050
* schannel: received incomplete message, need more data
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 2/3)
* schannel: encrypted data got 123
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 347 length 5050
* schannel: sending next handshake data: sending 126 bytes...
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 2/3)
* schannel: encrypted data got 242
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 242 length 5050
* schannel: SSL/TLS handshake complete
* schannel: SSL/TLS connection with api.cc.email port 443 (step 3/3)
* schannel: stored credential handle in session cache
> POST /v3/contact_exports/?api_key=a5d27602-fb59-452e-8ec8-6a9e4cdf8592 HTTP/1.1
> Host: api.cc.email
> User-Agent: curl/7.55.1
> Accept: */*
> Content-Type: application/json
> Content-Length: 11
>
* upload completely sent off: 11 out of 11 bytes
* schannel: client wants to read 102400 bytes
* schannel: encdata_buffer resized 103424
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 0 length 103424
* schannel: encrypted data got 735
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 735 length 103424
* schannel: decrypted data length: 706
* schannel: decrypted data added: 706
* schannel: decrypted data cached: offset 706 length 102400
* schannel: encrypted data buffer: offset 0 length 103424
* schannel: decrypted data buffer: offset 706 length 102400
* schannel: schannel_recv cleanup
* schannel: decrypted data returned 706
* schannel: decrypted data buffer: offset 0 length 102400
< HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
< Content-Type: application/json
< Content-Length: 102
< Connection: keep-alive
< Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2019 17:02:56 GMT
< x-amzn-RequestId: ae88b86d-c9b5-11e9-93de-3554c79da400
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Content-Type,X-Amz-Date,Authorization,X-Api-Key
< x-amz-apigw-id: fJEGFEg8oAMF3bA=
< Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET,POST,PUT,DELETE,PATCH,OPTIONS
< X-Cache: Error from cloudfront
< Via: 1.1 9b09209d18cb42b1369b4930fcf40560.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)
< X-Amz-Cf-Pop: ORD52-C2
< X-Amz-Cf-Id: 5emArlikkD1SZd562OqHIkkStFt6y-xW2f3b7OaoHKs02u0iC5eTlQ==
<
[
  {
    "error_key": "not_found",
    "error_message": "The requested resource was not found."
  }
]* Connection #1 to host api.cc.email left intact

Where did it go wrong? Thanks for any help - I would love to get this working!

[Jimmy_D]

Hello @JWCompton,

Thank you for reaching out to Constant Contact's API Support.

The method you are using to put together your API call is including the API Key; that method is not valid for our v3 API. Here is an example of a cURL for the Bulk Activity to Export contacts.

curl -X POST \
  https://api.cc.email/v3/activities/contact_exports \
 -H 'Accept: text/csv' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {access_token}' \
  -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache'
  -d '{
  "list_ids": [
    "f5cb02a0-88c7-11e5-9497-d4ae5275b546"
  ],
  "fields": [
  	"email_address"
  	],
  
  "status": "active"
}'

[JWCompton]

Thank you for the response but that format with the backslashes gives an error because it thinks that's the URL I want to use.

curl: (6) Could not resolve host: \
{"error_key":"unauthorized","error_message":"Unauthorized"}curl: (6) Could not resolve host: \

 And here was the command I used (has to be on one line to work in Windows).

curl -X POST \ https://api.cc.email/v3/activities/contact_exports \ -H 'Accept: text/csv' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer {access_token}' \ -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' -d '{ "list_ids": [ "f5cb02a0-88c7-11e5-9497-d4ae5275b546" ], "fields": ["email_address"], "status": "active" }'

[David_B.]

Hello,

The back slashes are only needed when breaking up the request into multiple lines. Since you are doing this all on one line, they can be omitted. For example:

curl -X POST https://api.cc.email/v3/activities/contact_exports -H 'Accept: text/csv' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Authorization: Bearer {access_token}' -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' -d '{ "list_ids": [ "f5cb02a0-88c7-11e5-9497-d4ae5275b546" ], "fields": ["email_address"], "status": "active" }'

Please give this a try and let me know if that works for you.

Sincerely,
David B.
Tier II API Support Engineer