Using curl in a bash script and getting curl: (3) Illegal characters found in URL
Solution 1:
The $URL contains a \r (CR) at the end (0d). Remove it with
URL=${URL%$'\r'}
before using it with curl.
Solution 2:
I had the same problem, but it was caused by me having created the script through Windows, which meant that the end of line had an unnecessary \r.
A simple dos to unix conversion fixed it.
dos2unix <scriptname>
Solution 3:
stripping away training \r
tr -d '\r' < test.sh > testWithoutR.sh