Guides

Making Your First Request

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Our interactive API Reference allows you to try the EDS API endpoints. It is available to help you to make your first request and test the various parameters. For each endpoint, the interactive documentation provides you with the following:

  • URL
  • Description
  • Parameter list
  • Ability to try each endpoint with different parameters
  • Ability to see the response to a specified request
  • Code Samples in several languages. The code samples provided reflect the parameters entered into the reference parameter fields.

Interact with our endpoints and see the responses that you can expect back from EDS API. For each endpoint in our API Reference, the description, recent requests, parameters and response variations are displayed under the URL. The code samples and actual response are displayed in the right hand column. Explore the endpoints by following the sequence of steps below. Navigate to the EDS API Reference to begin.

Authentication

  1. Click the Authentication section in the left hand menu. The details for the /authservice/rest/uidauth endpoint are displayed in the middle column.
  2. Enter your institution's username, password and interface id for the UserId, Password and InterfaceId fields.
  3. Click the Try It! button. The API reference makes a request to EDS API with your desired parameters. The response is displayed in the RESPONSE section to the right.

The /authservice/rest/uidauth response contains the authentication token that is needed to create a session.

Create a Session

  1. Click the Session section in the lefthand menu. The details for the /edsapi/rest/createsession endpoint are displayed in the middle column.
  2. Enter the profile identifier in the profile field. Within the documentation, the x-authenticationToken field is populated with the authentication token if you called the /authservice/rest/uidauth endpoint first.
  3. Click the Try It! button. The API reference makes a request to EDS API with your desired parameters. The response is displayed in the RESPONSE section to the right.

The /edsapi/rest/createsession response contains the session token which is needed for subsequent calls for the session.

Retrieve Profile Information

Once you have a valid authentication token and session token, you can call the /edsapi/rest/info endpoint to get the sort options, search fields, expanders and limiters available for your profile.

  1. Click the EDS API section in the lefthand menu. The details for the /edsapi/rest/info endpoint are displayed in the middle column. Within the documentation, the x-authenticationToken and x-sessionToken fields are populated with the tokens if you have called the /authservice/rest/uidauth and /edsapi/rest/createsession prior.

  2. Click the Try It! Button. The API reference makes a request to EDS API with your desired parameters. The response is displayed in the RESPONSE section to the right.

Once you determine the options that are defined by your EBSCO customer account in EBSCOadmin, you are ready to perform a search.

Search

The /edsapi/rest/search endpoint is used to run a search against all databases in your profile. The /edsapi/rest/search endpoint can be called once you have a a valid authentication token and session token.

  1. Click the EDS API section in the lefthand menu.
  2. Click on the first search in the dropdown. The details for the /edsapi/rest/search endpoint are displayed in the middle column. Within the documentation, the x-authenticationToken and x-sessionToken fields are populated with the tokens if you have called the /authservice/rest/uidauth and /edsapi/rest/createsession prior.
  3. Provide a value for the query-1 parameter. This parameter specifies what to search for. The remaining parameters are optional and have default values.
  4. Click the Try It! button. The API reference makes a request to EDS API with your desired parameters. The response is displayed in the RESPONSE section to the right.

Invoking the /edsapi/rest/search endpoint for the profile will return:

  • The complete query and the search criteria applied
  • Search statistics such as total hit count and search time
  • Database metadata such as number of hits per database and database names
  • For each record returned, the response will contain both granular data and display ready data, such as ISSN, custom links, full text indicators, plinks, title, authors, subjects, abstract, etc.
  • Facets related to that result set
  • Sort options for that result set

Retrieve a Record

The /edsapi/rest/retrieve is used to retrieve a single record. The /edsapi/rest/retrieve endpoint can be called once you have a valid authentication token and session token.

  1. Click the EDS API section in the lefthand menu.
  2. Click on the first retrieve in the dropdown. The details for the /edsapi/rest/retrieve endpoint are displayed in the middle column. The x-authenticationToken and x-sessionToken fields are populated with the tokens if you have called the /authservice/rest/uidauth and /edsapi/rest/createsession prior.
  3. Enter a value for the dbid and an field. The dbid is the database short name. The an field is the record identifier. Both of these values can be found in the Header element of the /esdapi/rest/search response. Within the documentation, the x-authenticationToken and x-sessionToken fields are populated with the tokens if you have called the /authservice/rest/uidauth and /edsapi/rest/createsession prior.
  4. Click the Try It! button. The API reference makes a request to EDS API with your desired parameters. The response is displayed in the RESPONSE section to the right.

Invoking the /edsapi/rest/retrieve endpoint for a particular record will return both granular data and display ready data, such as ISSN, custom links, full text indicators, permanent links (plinks), title, authors, subjects, abstract etc for that record.

The /edsapi/rest/retrieve endpoint will return a larger data set than the /esdapi/rest/search response for that record, and will also return the actual full text when available.

End a Session

The /edsapi/rest/endsession endpoint is used to end a session.

  1. Click the Session section in the lefthand menu.
  2. Click on the first endsession in the dropdown. The details for the /edsapi/rest/endsession endpoint are displayed in the middle column. Within the documentation, the x-authenticationToken field is populated for you.
  3. Enter the session token for the session that you would like to end in the SessionToken field.
  4. Click the Try It! button. The API reference makes a request to EDS API with your desired parameters. The response is displayed in the RESPONSE section to the right.

If you do not end the session, the session will end after the expiration time specified in EBSCOadmin.

Updated 5 months ago