Difference between revisions of "Drupal/C4/RESTful-API-with-a-REST-Client/English"

RESTful API with a REST Client

• What is REST client
• Retrieve data - GET method
• Create a new node - POST method
• Modify an existing node - PATCH method
• Delete an existing node - DELETE method

We also learn to use the REST client to

• Retrieve data using GET method
• Create a new node using POST method
• Modify an existing node using PATCH method and
• Delete an existing node using DELETE method

System requirement

To record this tutorial, I am using

• Ubuntu Linux 16.04 OS
• Drupal 8
• Postman as a REST Client
• Firefox web browser

• Ubuntu Linux 16.04
• Drupal 8
• Postman as a REST client and
• Firefox web browser

You can use any REST client and web browser as per your choice.

Pre-requisites

• You should have basic knowledge of Drupal
• RESTful API implemented in your Drupal website
• If not, for relevant Drupal tutorials please visit http://spoken-tutorial.org
• A working Internet connection

The RESTful API should have been implemented in your Drupal website.

If not, please go through the previous Drupal tutorials on this website.

You should also have a working Internet connection.

To do so, open our Drupa8 site.

Here you can see that RESTful API is implemented in the Events content type.

Now we will learnt to check our RESTful API using a REST client.

I will use Postman as a REST client.

You can use any REST client as per your choice.

• It is a powerful HTTP client for testing web services
• For installing Postman client, see Additional reading material link

To install the Postman client, refer to the Additional reading material link of this tutorial.

But most of the steps are applicable to any other Drupal installation, as well.

Choose GET from the drop-down list.

Highlight localhost:8080

Highlight drupal

Highlight events

We will now enter the path of our RESTful API.

Here localhost:8080 is my server name.

If you are not using Bitnami Drupal stack, please use localhost instead of localhost:8080.

drupal is the folder of my Drupal instance.

events is the content type on which we have configured the RESTful API.

Point to the result

You can see here the contents of our events content type in json format.

Type the path

Click on the plus button at the top panel to add a new tab.

Choose GET from the dropdown list.

We have to give the exact path of the particular node.

Point to the result

You can see here the content of that particular node is retrieved.

<<PAUSE>>

Choose POST

Click on the plus button at the top panel to add a new tab.

Choose POST from the drop-down list.

Highlight localhost:8080

Highlight drupal

Highlight /node?_format=hal+json

Here localhost:8080 is my server name.

drupal is the folder of my Drupal instance.

We have to hard-code the rest of the things.

Point to Authentication

Here you can see the token for the basic authentication.

"_links": {

"type": {

"href": "http://localhost:8080:8080/drupal/rest/type/node/events"

}

},

"title":[

{

"value": "Created by an authenticated user!!!"

}

],

"body": [

{

"value": " This is an event!!!"

}

]

}

So type the following code.

This json code is used to create a new node of the type events.

For that we specify the values for title and body fields.

The same code is given in the Code files link of this tutorial.

Please download and use it.

Point to the first event

Switch back to our Drupal site.

Here you can see the event which is posted from the Postman client.

Note that the UID of this post is 100.

We will use this UID in the postman client to modify this node.

<<PAUSE>>

Click plus button

Let us switch back to the Postman client.

Click on the plus button at the top panel to add a new tab.

Highlight 100

For example, we will modify the node which we created using POST method.

The UID of this node is 100.

We will enter the URL of the node 100.

Point to Authentication

Here you can see the token for the basic authentication.

{

"_links": {

"type": {

"href": "http://localhost:8080/drupal/rest/type/node/events"

}

},

"title":[

{

"value": "Changed by PATCH!!!"

}

],

"body": [

{

"value": " The value is changed by patch method!!!"

}

]

}

In this code we modify the values for both the title and the body fields.

The same code is given in the Code files link of this tutorial.

Please download and use it.

Refresh the page

Point to the first event

Switch back to our Drupal website.

Let us refresh the page.

Here you can see that the event is successfully modified using the PATCH method.

<<PAUSE>>

Point to node 8 in the URL

I will choose node 100 which was created by me as an authenticated user.

Remember that we have permitted the authenticated users to delete their own content only.

Click plus button

Click on the plus button to add a new tab.

<<PAUSE>>

With this, we come to the end of this tutorial.

Summary

In this tutorial, we have learnt about-

• Postman client as a REST client
• Managing content through Postman client using GET, POST, PATCH and DELETE methods

In this tutorial, we have learnt about-

• Postman client as a REST client and
• Managing content through Postman client using GET, POST, PATCH and DELETE methods

Assignment

• Create some new articles through REST Client
• Modify the articles using PATCH method

• Create some new articles through REST client and
• Modify the articles using PATCH method

Acknowledgement

Please download and watch it.

Spoken Tutorial Workshops

For more details, please write to us.

Acknowledgement

• NMEICT, Ministry of Human Resource Development and
• NVLI, Ministry of Culture

Government of India.

This is Priya from IIT Bombay signing off. Thanks for joining.