DSpace REST API - Bojan Suzic

Integration, testing, documentation and further development of DSpace REST services for 1.x and 2.0 versions. - Bojan Suzic

Not completed!

This page is not completed. The work on specifications is ongoing. Everyone is welcome to comment or contribute!

Details

Project Title:	DSpace REST API
Student:	Bojan Suzic, University of Technology Graz
Mentors:	Aaron Zeckoski, Mark Diggory
Contacting author:	bojan AT student . tugraz DOT at - using subject line DSpace
SCM Location for Project:	http://scm.dspace.org/svn/repo/modules/rest

Project description

The REST approach promotes simplification and decoupling of software architecture, enabling further scalability, portability, granularity and simplified interaction of software systems and components.
The aim of this project is to provide DSpace with REST capable API and underlying component, which will enable developers and end-users to exploit the advantages of such approach.

Some of uses this module is intended to provide could be, for instance:

interaction between DSpace systems and/or other repositories
automation of different activities, e.g. submission of packages
integrating repositories in process workflows of other applications or systems
interaction with many kinds of systems or web applications, such as CMS, LMS, LCMS, VLS, AMS etc
providing of other approaches to UI, such as client based/run UI
crawling of repositories, exposing information in structural way

This project is continuation of last year's activities, supported by Google as part of GSoC 2009. In the first stage the basic support for REST for DSpace is provided, exposing many parts of DSpace functionality to the clients.

In this year's GSoC the following activities should be primarily addressed:

integration of existing code in the system
alignment of REST API with currently available DSpace features/functionality, e.g. adding of new features
extending of existing code, in order to provide better handling of management and injection functions
providing more detailed documentation and examples for end users
testing activities, e.g. cooperation/coordination with other GSoC 10 project Unit testing
promotion of DSpace REST interaction (by taking part in integration with other systems)

Detailed activities

In the following sections main activities are elaborated in detail.

REST API Methods

Changes in comparison to existing support are marked with red color. Please note that changes may appear as:

introduction of new method
extending of existing method, by implementing new functionality (e.g. GET/PUT/DELETE)
extending of existing method, by changing its parameters, output etc

Repository browsing

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/communities?topLevelOnly=true&idOnly=false
Description:	Returns a list of all communities on the system or return just top level communities.
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, countitems`: sorting by id, community name and item count
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/communities/{id}/parents?idOnly=false&immediateOnly=true
Description:	Returns a list of all parent communities of the `id` community.
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, countitems`: sorting by id, community name and item count
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/communities/`id`/children?idOnly=false
Description:	Returns a list of immediate sub-communities (children) of the `id` community.
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, countitems`: sorting by id, community name and item count
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/communities/`id`/collections?idOnly=false
Description:	Returns a list of collections in the `id` community
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, countitems`: sorting by id, collection name and item count
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

Name and description

Value and notes

Base URI:

/communities/

Unknown macro: {id}

/recent?idOnly=false |

Description:	Returns a list of recent submissions to a community
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, lastmodified, submitter`: sorting by id, name(title), last modified date and submitter(name) of item
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/collections?idOnly=false
Description:	Returns a list of all collections in the system
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, countitems`: sorting by id, collection name and item count
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/collections/

/communities?idOnly=false

Description:

Returns a list of all communities a collection with id belongs to

HTTP method:

GET

Optional parameters:

Sorting fields supported:

id, name, countitems: sorting by id, community name and item count

Response formats:

json, xml

Status codes

200: OK
204: no content
400: bad request
500: internal server error

Response details

Name and description	Value and notes
Base URI:	/collections/ Unknown macro: {id} /items?idOnly=false&in_archive=false
Description:	Returns a list of all items from the collection `id`
HTTP method:	`GET`
Optional parameters:
Sorting fields supported:	`id, name, lastmodified, submitter`: sorting by id, name, lastmodified date and submitter of item
Response formats:	`json`, `xml`
Status codes	200: OK 204: no content 400: bad request 500: internal server error
Response details

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GSOC10 - DSpace REST API