How to make a minimal HTTPS request with ncat --ssl with explicit HTTP content?

[Ciro Santilli OurBigBook via dev <dev () nmap org>]

Hello, I was trying for fun to make an HTTPS request with explicit hand-written HTTP content.

Something analogous to:

printf 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: example.com\r\n\r\n' | ncat example.com 80

but for HTTPS. After Googling one of the tools that I found that seemed it might do the job was ncat from the nmap 
project, so I tried:

printf 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: example.com\r\n\r\n' | ncat --ssl example.com 443

an that works fine. But unfortunately, example.com is the only well known domain I've tried for which it worked, with 
other hosts failing in various different ways, e.g.:

printf 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: github.com\r\n\r\n' | ncat --ssl github.com 443

gives:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request

and other hosts fail in various different ways, I've documented some at: 
https://serverfault.com/questions/102032/connecting-to-https-with-netcat-nc/650189#650189

Is ncat --ssl meant to support that? And if so what am I doing wrong? And otherwise, do you know of a more appropriate 
tool for the task?

Ciro Santilli - OurBigBook.com

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