Querying for Data with POSTs

Oracle Utilities REST APIs include POST operation endpoints that support querying for data. This can include lists of known records or unknown record searches based on input criteria parameters. While GET endpoints are commonly used to return resources from a server, a GET request cannot accept a request body message. All of the request criteria for a GET must be provided as part of the URL through required path or optional query parameters. This can lead to GET endpoints with cumbersome path and query parameter requirements, which can in turn cause the endpoints to be difficult to correctly construct and use.

Altenatively, POST search operation endpoints support data retrieval where all criteria can be provided in the message body of the request. A successful 200 response includes data results in the response message. Depending on the purpose of the query, the results can be a list with a maximum number of total results, or a set of records returned from the total results that are paginated by specifying offset and limit parameters.