First, download and host the demo file (user: admin, no password) on FileMaker 17 Server. The sample file is a great way to learn how to work with both the cURL options and the Data API. This is important, because in the sample file available below, we are leveraging the new cURL options to allow a FileMaker solution to talk to its own hosted Data API, giving a solution the power to interrogate and alter its own data through the API. This upgrade brings the FileMaker client up-to-date with an ability to interact with REST APIs without the use of a plug-in. Since FileMaker Pro 16, the client product ships with additional cURL options in the Insert from URL script step.
This will not work on an un-hosted FileMaker solution. Note the emphasis on hosted as this is a feature of FileMaker Server and its ability to respond to REST requests for your hosted FileMaker solutions and return a data response in JSON format. The Data API provides all of the basic CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) against your hosted FileMaker data. Lucky you! What does the FileMaker Data API do? After quite a bit of fiddling and trial-and-erroring, I believe I have figured most of it out. It is not always readily apparent how to structure the syntax for successful API calls. Now that you understand the basics, let’s dig into the particulars of FileMaker’s implementation of a REST API. I would suggest you do the same and review a variety of materials until you get it. Frankly, I just chose this from a Google search for “REST API Tutorials”. If you need to start from the beginning, I would suggest this REST API tutorial.
Let’s start by getting familiar with REST! First off, I’d like to limit the scope of this post to understanding FileMaker’s implementation of REST, not REST in general. Special thanks to Beezwax’s UX designer Mekuria Getinet for the demo file UI redesign and to FileMaker developer Andrew “Red” Witschonke for implementing such.
The basic mechanics of working with a Data API and the demo file are fundamentally the same, so I am including here the relevant bits from the previous blog post for convenience. And that’s the work we’re here to do!ĭon’t despair! I have done the work for you of refactoring the demo file I released for the FM 16 Data API. This means that any applications written against the FM 16 Data API need to be refactored for compatibility with FileMaker 17. As you might expect, the FileMaker 17 Data API introduces significant changes. This API was originally released with FileMaker 16, but only as a “beta”, expiring September 2018.
As y’all probably know by now, FileMaker 17 has been released, including the first production edition of FileMaker Server’s Data API.
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