# Gerrit Code Review - REST API Developers' Notes

version v2.11.4-22-ge0c0f29

This document is about developing the REST API. For details of the actual APIs available in Gerrit, please see the REST API interface reference.

## Testing REST API Functionality

### Basic Testing

Basic testing of REST API functionality can be done with `curl`:

      curl http://localhost:8080/path/to/api/

By default, `curl` sends `GET` requests. To test APIs with `PUT`, `POST`, or `DELETE`, an additional argument is required:

     curl -X PUT http://localhost:8080/path/to/api/
     curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/path/to/api/
     curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/path/to/api/

### Sending Data in the Request

Some REST APIs accept data in the request body of `PUT` and `POST` requests.

Test data can be included from a local file:

      curl -X PUT -d@testdata.txt --header "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/path/to/api/

Note that the `-d` option will remove the newlines from the content of the local file. If the content should be sent as-is then use the `--data-binary` option instead:

      curl -X PUT --data-binary @testdata.txt --header "Content-Type: text/plain" http://localhost:8080/path/to/api/

Example to set a Gerrit project’s description:

     curl -X PUT --digest --user john:2LlAB3K9B0PF --data-binary @project-desc.txt --header "Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8" http://localhost:8080/a/projects/myproject/description

### Authentication

To test APIs that require authentication, the username and password must be specified on the command line:

     curl --digest --user username:password http://localhost:8080/a/path/to/api/

This makes it easy to switch users for testing of permissions.

It is also possible to test with a username and password from the `.netrc` file (on Windows, `_netrc`):

     curl --digest -n http://localhost:8080/a/path/to/api/

In both cases, the password should be the user’s HTTP password.

### Verifying Header Content

To verify the headers returned from a REST API call, use `curl` in verbose mode:

      curl -v -n --digest -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/a/path/to/api/

The headers on both the request and the response will be printed.

Part of Gerrit Code Review