Resource Search 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 resource's fields, such as URL.

Proposed implementation

Add resource search API at:

/api/search/resource

AND resource added to model API at:

api/rest/resource

(see ticket:358)

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?

Example search

POST

{"url": "scraperwiki.com/", "all_fields": 1}

to: /api/2/search/resource

returns JSON:

 [{"id": "a3dd8f64-9078-4f04-845c-e3f047125028",
   "package_id": "b8a325c8-af2a-43f3-8245-9db7d73dfbfe",
   "URL": "http://scraperwiki.com/lincolnshire-councillors", 
   "format": "CSV", 
   "Description": "Scrape of www.lincs.gov/councillors.pdf by ScraperWiki.",
   "hash": "", 
   "position": 2
 }]

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.

JSONP achieved through API-wide parameter - see ticket:342

Search is case insensitive.

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

[dread]

Done in cset:742adebb707c and cset:1748e6554e77.

[dread]

Took 0.75 days.

[Donny]

​http://ckan.net/api/search/resource?url=http://scraperwiki.com&all_fields=1&callback=ckantest

yields

Bad search option: Field "callback" not recognised in Resource search.

[dread]

Fixed in cset:e719f449bc74