The -L or --location flag in Curl is used to handle HTTP redirects.
When you make a request to a website or a web server, sometimes the resource you requested might have been moved to a different location. In this case, the server will send back a response with a status code in the 300 range, usually 301 (Moved Permanently) or 302 (Found), indicating that the resource has been redirected to a new URL. The new URL will be included in the Location header of the HTTP response.
By default, Curl does not follow these redirects, meaning it will just return the initial response from the server with the redirect status code. If you want Curl to automatically follow the redirect and make a new request to the new URL, you can use the -L or --location flag.
For example:
curl -L http://example.com
In this example, if http://example.com returns a 301 or 302 status code with a new URL in the Location header, Curl will automatically make a new request to that URL and return the response.
It's important to note that -L will only cause Curl to follow redirects if the request method is GET or HEAD. For other methods, such as POST, Curl will not follow the redirect unless you also use the --post301 or --post302 options.
Finally, if you want Curl to follow redirects and keep the request method the same (i.e., a POST request remains a POST request after the redirect), you can use the -L flag in combination with the --post301, --post302 and --post303 options:
curl -L --post301 --post302 --post303 http://example.com
This will cause Curl to follow all redirects and maintain the original request method.
