Getting Started with Fluidinfo

Chapter 7. Fluidinfo’s RESTful API

This chapter is meant as a reference for developers who want or need to work with Fluidinfo at the very lowest level: that of the HTTP API. It will be of special interest to developers who would like to write or enhance a client library for Fluidinfo.

The definitive documentation for the API is always at the Fluidinfo website. This chapter is a practical complement to it.

Fluidinfo’s API is RESTful and uses HTTP as the underlying protocol for transfer of data between client and server. Resources within Fluidinfo are referenced by unique URIs, data is passed with an associated MIME type (usually JSON), and operations are done via HTTP methods such as POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE.

It is assumed that the reader has a basic understanding of HTTP, MIME types, and JSON, because the following sections are illustrated with examples of raw HTTP calls and responses given correctly constructed requests.

Making HTTP Requests to Fluidinfo

Fluidinfo expects requests and responses to have the following common requirements fulfilled.

User Validation

Fluidinfo currently uses basic HTTP authentication, although this is likely to change in the not-too-distant future.

This means that in order to send a request from a specific user, the client needs to send an Authorization header and associated token. It is also recommended that all requests be made using SSL, because that makes it possible to decode a user’s credentials from the supplied token.

The authorization token is created ...