SharePoint and Rest API - Introduction

What is SharePoint and REST?

SharePoint 2013 comes with a feature called REST i.e. REpresentational State Transfer; this helps developers to work on the data stored in SharePoint with much ease using any technology that supports RESTful services. Now developers can perform CRUD operations on the data sored in SharePoint using GET, PUT, POST and DELETE HTTP request.

How REST Operations are mapped with CRUD?

CRUD	HTTP Request	Comments
CREATE	POST	Use POST to create data in SharePoint.
READ	GET	Use GET to read data from SharePoint.
UPDATE	PUT/MERGE	Use PUT and MERGE to update the existing data in the SharePoint.
DELETE	DELETE	Use DELETE to delete data from SharePoint.

Mapping of SharePoint Client Object model API and REST API

Following data is collected from MSDN and this pretty much explains the mapping of client object model and REST endpoints.

Client object model API	REST endpoint
ClientContext.Web.Lists	http://server/site/_api/web/lists
ClientContext.Web.Lists[guid]	http://server/site/_api/web/lists(‘guid’)
ClientContext.Web.Lists.GetByTitle("Title")	http://server/site/_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)

Querying SharePoint Data with REST

REST endpoint(http://server/site/)	Description(Support Operation)
_api/web/lists	Get all the lists from SharePoint Site.(GET)
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)	Get details of a list by its title.(GET,POST)
_api/web/lists(guid’guid of list’)	Get list details by its id, change in title will not affect your code.(GET,POST)
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/Fields	Get all the fields in the list.(GET,POST)
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/Fields/getbytitle(‘FTitle;)	Get a particular field detail and that detail can be manipulated (GET,PUT/MERGE.DELETE)
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/Items	Get all the items in the list and support new items to be added(GET,POST)
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/getitembyid(‘itemid’)	Get an item by its ID and supports new update an delete(GET,PUT/MERGE.DELETE)
Select Support
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/Items$select=Title,Id	Select specific columns from the list; Title and Id in this case.(GET,POST)
Filter Support
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/Items?$filter=ID eq 'id' or ID eq ‘id1’	Filter the data based on the ID.(GET,POST)
Order Support
_api/web/lists/getbytitle(‘Title’)/Items? &$orderby= ID asc	Order by ID asc order.(GET,POST)

Various Filtering Operations

As Per technet wiki following is the list of operations that can be used with the filter.

Supported	Not supported
Numeric comparisons Lt Le Gt Ge Eq Ne	Arithmetic operators  (Add, Sub, Mul, Div, Mod) Basic math functions  (round, floor, ceiling)
String comparisons startsWith substringof Eq Ne	endsWith replace substring tolower toupper trim concat
Date and time functions day() month() year() hour() minute() second()	DateTimeRangesOverlap operator Querying as to whether a date time falls inside a recurrent date time pattern