OData Basics

This page gives an brief introduction to OData

What is OData?

"An open protocol to allow the creation and consumption of queryable and interoperable RESTful APIs in a simple and standard way" - odata.org

OData is short for Open Data Protocol. It's an standardized protocol which allows the creation and consumption of RESTful APIs. RESTful services is a well know and established interface concept throughout the modern internet. The most common protocol used for REST services is HTTP and the URI in a RESTful services should refer to a resource combined with a HTTP method, GET, POST, PATCH etc. Request and payloads is most commonly formatted as JSON but XML and other formats is also possible.

OData extends on the RESTful concepts with standards like: request and payload headers ,URL conventions, payload formats, query keywords etc.

OData examples

The below examples is from the tutorial you will find in the next section.

GET request examples

By clicking the URLs below your browser will perform a HTTP GET requests. The response will be a JSON.

GET the resource People the URL would look like: https://services.odata.org/v4/TripPinServiceRW/People
GET and individual resource of the entity People the URL would look like: https://services.odata.org/v4/TripPinServiceRW/People('russellwhyte')
Query for People with certain conditions and $top,$select and $filter parameters: https://services.odata.org/v4/(S(i1jaylafcdysy0xtxlukhcqw))/TripPinServiceRW/People?$top=2%20&%20$select=FirstName,%20LastName%20&%20$filter=Trips/any(d:d/Budget%20gt%203000)

POST example

POST https://services.odata.org/v4/(S(34wtn2c0hkuk5ekg0pjr513b))/TripPinServiceRW/People HTTP/1.1
OData-Version: 4.0
OData-MaxVersion: 4.0
Content-Length: 428
Content-Type: application/json
{
    'UserName':'lewisblack',
    'FirstName':'Lewis',
    'LastName':'Black',
    'Emails':[
        '[email protected]'
    ],
    'AddressInfo':[
        {
            Address: '187 Suffolk Ln.',
            City: {
CountryRegion: 'United States',
Name: 'Boise',
Region: 'ID'
            }
        }
    ],
    'Gender': 'Male',
    'Concurrency':635519729375200400
}

OData tutorials

A good and comprehensive way to quickly learn basics of OData is to go through the tutorials provided by odata.org. You should go through the "For absolute beginners" and "Basic tutorial".

When using the Novacura OData Connector you will interact with the OData services in a "No code"-manner by abstracting away the complexity of OData. But having OData knowledge will ease IFS debugging and overall understanding; ultimately making you a better developer. Follow the link below.