How to get the contents of a webpage in a shell variable?

Question

In Linux how can I fetch an URL and get its contents in a variable in shell script?

Answer 1

If you have LWP installed, it provides a binary simply named "GET".

$ GET http://example.com



  
  
 
  
You have reached this web page by typing "example.com",
"example.net","example.org"
  or "example.edu" into your web browser.
These domain names are reserved for use in documentation and are not available 
  for registration. See RFC 
  2606, Section 3.

wget -O-, curl, and lynx -source behave similarly.