Web Services Examples

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Revision as of 09:33, 24 May 2009 by Scott (talk | contribs) (Updating an item)
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So, now that you've been through the documentation on the API Concepts, XML Format and REST API, let's take a look at a few practical examples of working with the Directed Edge webservices.

For these examples we'll be using the command line tool curl to upload XML to the webservices.

Importing a database

Let's start with a very simple database with three users (with the IDs user1, user2 and user3) and three products (with the IDs product1, product2 and product3).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<directededge version="0.1">
  <item id="user1">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <link>product1</link>
    <link>product2</link>
  </item>
  <item id="user2">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <link>product3</link>
  </item>
  <item id="user3">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <link>product2</link>
  </item>
  <item id="product1">
    <tag>product</tag>
  </item>
  <item id="product2">
    <tag>product</tag>
  </item>
  <item id="product3">
    <tag>product</tag>
  </item>
</directededge>

Curl Command (Download XML):

$ curl -T database.xml https://exampledb:password@webservices.directededge.com/api/v1/exampledb

This imports the structure above into the exampledb database.

Exporting a database

Curl Command:

$ curl https://exampledb:password@webservices.directededge.com/api/v1/exampledb

Produces:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>

<directededge version="0.1">
  <item id="user1">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <link>product1</link>
    <link>product2</link>
  </item>
  <item id="user2">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <link>product3</link>
  </item>
  <item id="user3">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <link>product2</link>
  </item>
  <item id="product1">
    <tag>product</tag>
  </item>
  <item id="product2">
    <tag>product</tag>
  </item>
  <item id="product3">
    <tag>product</tag>
  </item>
</directededge>

Which is what we imported just above.

Adding an item

Adds a user with the ID user4 to the database.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<directededge version="0.1">
  <item id="user4">
    <tag>user</tag>
  </item>
</directededge>

Curl Command (Download XML):

$ curl -T user4.xml https://exampledb:password@webservices.directededge.com/api/v1/exampledb/user4

Retrieving an item

Curl Command:

$ curl https://exampledb:password@webservices.directededge.com/api/v1/exampledb/user4

Produces:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>

<directededge version="0.1">
  <item id="user4">
    <tag>user</tag>
  </item>
</directededge>

Again, just as we created a moment ago.

Updating an item

Here we update the item above, but this time add the property city. This overwrites all current contents of the item.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<directededge version="0.1">
  <item id="user4">
    <tag>user</tag>
    <property name="city">Berlin</property>
  </item>
</directededge>

Curl Command (Download XML):

$ curl -T user4-update.xml https://exampledb:password@webservices.directededge.com/api/v1/exampledb/user4

Adding a tag to an item

Adding a link to an item

Adding a property to an item

Removing a tag from an item

Removing a link from an item

Deleting an item

Finding related items

Doing personalized recommendations