Curl to call RESTful API

In this post I will perform some basic interactions with a RESTful service running on ASP.NET written in C#. I will access the RESTful server using the cURL (a.k.a. curl) command line interface. On a future post I will access the curl API using the C# programming language to illustrate its use.

The simple RESTful service was developed in C# using the Visual Studio Professional 2013 IDE. The RESTful service was based on one of the examples used in a tutorial by Guru 99.

The server exposes a set of tutorial names. The API can be used to display the list of tutorials (GET), get the name of a tutorial associated to a tutorial ID (GET), add a new tutorial (POST) and edit the name of an existing tutorial (PUT).

Let’s start by getting a list of all tutorials in the service by invoking from a command prompt the following:

C:\>curl http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial
Arrays, Queues, Stacks

By default, curl uses the GET verb and we have specified the address of the service and requested to get a list of all tutorials in the system. At this point in time the list contains: Arrays, Queues and Stacks.

The associated C# code on the server follows:

		// **** use the GET verb (list of tutorials) ****

		[WebGet(UriTemplate="/Tutorial")]

		// **** use GET verb to fetch all tutorials ****

		public String GetAllTutorial()
		{
			int count			= lst.Count();
			String tutorialList = "";
			for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
				tutorialList = tutorialList + lst[i];
				if (i < (count - 1)) {
					tutorialList += ", ";
				}
			}
			return tutorialList;
		}

If we are interested in getting the tutorial associated with ID 1 we could issue the following command:

curl http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial/1
Queues

The proper name of the tutorial is returned by the call. The associated server code follows:

		// **** use GET verb to fetch specified tutorial ****

		[WebGet(UriTemplate="Tutorial/{tutorialID}")]

		// **** return the name of the specified tutorial ID ****

		public String GetTutorialByID (String tutorialID)
		{
			int pid;
			Int32.TryParse(tutorialID, out pid);
			if ((pid >= 0) && (pid < lst.Count())) {
				return lst[pid];
			} else {
				return ":o( :o( :o(";
			}
		}

Using the following commands we could insert the name of a new tutorial and then check the updated list:

curl -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d "{}" http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial/Inter%20Process%20Communications
{}
curl http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial
Arrays, Queues, Stacks, Inter Process Communications

The associated C# code in the RESTful service follows:

		// **** use POST verb ****

		[WebInvoke(	Method = "POST", 
					RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
					UriTemplate = "/Tutorial/{str}",
					ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
					BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped)]

		// **** add a new tutorial to the list ****

		public void AddTutorial(String str)
		{
			if (!lst.Contains(str)) {
				lst.Add(str);
			}
		}

We can edit the name of a tutorial by specifying the ID and the new name as illustrated by the following commands:

curl -X PUT -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d "{}" http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial/3/IPC
{}
curl http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial
Arrays, Queues, Stacks, IPC

The associated code in the server is as follows:

		// **** use PUT verb (update existing tutorial) ****

		[WebInvoke(	Method = "PUT", 
					RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
					UriTemplate = "/Tutorial/{tutorialID}/{tutorialName}",
					ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json,
					BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped)]

		// **** update existing tutorial in the list ****

		public void EditTutorial(String tutorialID, String tutorialName)
		{

			// **** verify the tutorial ID ****

			int pid;
			Int32.TryParse(tutorialID, out pid);

			// **** update the tutorial name (if in list) ****

			if ((pid >= 0) && (pid <= lst.Count() - 1)) {
				lst[pid] = tutorialName;
			}
		}

Finally, we are able to delete a tutorial from the list by issuing the following commands:

curl -X DELETE -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d "{}" http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial/1
{}
curl http://localhost:49496/TutorialService.svc/Tutorial
Arrays, Stacks, IPC

The associated code in the server follows:

		// **** use the DELETE verb ****

		[WebInvoke(	Method = "DELETE",
					RequestFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, 
					UriTemplate = "Tutorial/{Tutorialid}", 
					ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json, 
					BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped)]

		// **** delete the specified tutorial from the list ****

		public void DeleteTutorial (String tutorialID)
		{
			int pid;
			Int32.TryParse(tutorialID, out pid);
			if ((pid >= 0) && (pid <= lst.Count() - 1)) {
				lst.RemoveAt(pid);
			}
		}

If you have comments or questions regarding this post, please fee to leave it in the section following this text. I will act on your input as soon as possible.

Enjoy;

John
Follow me on Twitter: @john_canessa