Resource extension to REST API

[donovanhide]

As a

CKAN client such as ScraperWiki

I want to

search for Package Resources, either by URL or other field, or just get them all. I want to be able to get all the fields.

Proposed implementation

Add resource search API at:

/api/search/resource

AND resource added to model API at:

api/rest/resource

Functional differences from the ScraperWiki suggested patch:

• URL is not normalised

• URLs are not grouped

• All fields of the resource object are returned, not just the URL

• Package is identified by its ID, not name or full URL. (This is for consistency in the API - you can simple prepend '​http://ckan.net/package/' to the package ID)

This is to make our API more general, simple and consistent. It means that the ScraperWiki client has to do a bit more processing to get exactly what it needs. Is this ok?

Examples

POST {"url": "scraperwiki.com", "all_fields": 1 , to: /api/2/search/resource

returns

 [{"URL": "http://scraperwiki.com/lincolnshire-councillors", "format": "CSV", "Description": "Scrape of www.lincs.gov/councillors.pdf by ScraperWiki.", "hash": "", "package_id": "b8a325c8-af2a-43f3-8245-9db7d73dfbfe"}]

Note use of package_id instead of package_name is something we're moving towards in the API, since names can change. When we've done ticket:341 then ckan.net/package/lincs-councillors will be a synonym of ckan.net/package/b8a325c8-af2a-43f3-8245-9db7d73dfbfe

Search Parameters

Key:  q
Description: Search all resource fields for the value

Key: url / description / format / 
Description: Search particular field for the value

Key: all_fields
Value: 0 or 1 (0 is default)
Description: If 1 (true), the full record of the package resource (and it's package reference) are returned, rather than just the PackageResource ID.

May also choose to introduce 'offset' and 'limit' to page through a large number of results.

Original request

Hi, have attached a patch for adding a resource list api call. Have also added a JSONP compatible callback section, along the lines of #388.

Could also add a search version. Not sure what the best url would be for that though.

Haven't written a test as the structure seems to follow a functional spec. Is that document around somewhere?

Donovan