How do I check the HTTP status code and also parse the payload - bash

Question

Imagine I have the following code in a bash script:
curl -s https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat | jq .
Notice that I wish to display the payload of the response by passing it to jq.
Now suppose sometimes those curls sometimes return a 404, in such cases my script currently still succeeds so what I need to do is check the return code and exit 1 as appropriate (e.g. for a 404 or 503). I've googled around and found https://superuser.com/a/442395/722402 which suggests --write-out "%{http_code}" might be useful however that simply prints the http_code after printing the payload:
curl -s --write-out "%{http_code}" https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat | jq .
$ curl -s --write-out "%{http_code}" https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat | jq .
{
"_id": "591f98783b90f7150a19c1ab",
"__v": 0,
"text": "Cats and kittens should be acquired in pairs whenever possible as cat families interact best in pairs.",
"updatedAt": "2018-12-05T05:56:30.384Z",
"createdAt": "2018-01-04T01:10:54.673Z",
"deleted": false,
"type": "cat",
"source": "api",
"used": false
}
200
What I actually want to is still output the payload, but still be able to check the http status code and fail accordingly. I'm a bash noob so am having trouble figuring this out. Help please?
I'm using a Mac by the way, not sure if that matters or not (I'm vaguely aware that some commands work differently on Mac)
Update, I've pieced this together which sorta works. I think. Its not very elegant though, I'm looking for something better.
func() {
echo "${#:1:$#-1}";
}
response=$(curl -s --write-out "%{http_code}" https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat | jq .)
http_code=$(echo $response | awk '{print $NF}')
func $response | jq .
if [ $http_code == "503" ]; then
echo "Exiting with error due to 503"
exit 1
elif [ $http_code == "404" ]; then
echo "Exiting with error due to 404"
exit 1
fi

Answer 1

What about this. It uses a temporary file. Seems me a bit complicated but it separates your content.
# copy/paste doesn't work with the following
curl -s --write-out \
"%{http_code}" https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat | \
tee test.txt | \ # split output to file and stdout
sed -e 's-.*\}--' | \ # remove everything before last '}'
grep 200 && \ # try to find string 200, only in success next step is done
echo && \ # a new-line to juice-up the output
cat test.txt | \ #
sed 's-}.*$-}-' | \ # removes the last line with status
jq # formmat json
Here a copy/paste version
curl -s --write-out "%{http_code}" https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat | tee test.txt | sed -e 's-.*\}--' | grep 200 && echo && cat test.txt | sed 's-}.*$-}-' | jq

Answer 2

This is my attempt. Hope it works for you too.
#!/bin/bash
result=$( curl -i -s 'https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat' )
status=$( echo "$result" | grep -E '^HTTPS?/[1-9][.][1-9] [1-9][0-9][0-9]' | grep -o ' [1-9][0-9][0-9] ')
payload=$( echo "$result" | sed -n '/^\s*$/,//{/^\s*$/ !p}' )
echo "STATUS : $status"
echo "PAYLOAD : $payload"
Output
STATUS : 200
PAYLOAD : {"_id":"591f98803b90f7150a19c23f","__v":0,"text":"Cats can't taste sweets.","updatedAt":"2018-12-05T05:56:30.384Z","createdAt":"2018-01-04T01:10:54.673Z","deleted":false,"type":"cat","source":"api","used":false}
AWK version
payload=$( echo "$result" | awk '{ if( $0 ~ /^\s*$/ ){ c_p = 1 ; next; } if (c_p) { print $0} }' )
Regards!
EDIT : I have simplified this even more by using the -i flag
EDIT II : Removed empty line from payload
EDIT III : Included an awk method to extract the payload in case sed is problematic

Answer 3

Borrowing from here you can do:
#!/bin/bash
result=$(curl -s --write-out "%{http_code}" https://cat-fact.herokuapp.com/facts/random?animal=cat)
http_code="${result: -3}"
response="${result:0:${#result}-3}"
echo "Response code: " $http_code
echo "Response: "
echo $response | jq
Where
${result: -3} is the 3rd index starting from the right of the string till the end. This ${result: -3:3} also would work: Index -3 with length 3
${#result} gives us the length of the string
${result:0:${#result}-3} from the beginning of result to the end minus 3 from the http_status code
The site cat-fact.herokuapp.com isn't working now so I had to test it with another site