Making Your REST Calls Simpler by Changing the Metadata Setting

When you talk to SharePoint using REST, you have some options about what the data you get or send looks like. Early on, when REST first arrived on the scene for SharePoint, we HAD to specify odata=verbose. This meant that we had to be very specific about what our data was going to look like, especially when it came to updates.

If you don’t use odata=verbose, then you’re telling the server to accept something different. You’re basically telling the server what “dialect” of odata you are choosing to speak for the current transaction.

If you look at this post, you’ll see the options:

https://blogs.office.com/2014/08/13/json-light-support-rest-sharepoint-api-released/

Just to recap, the options are:

accept: application/json; odata=verbose

This is probably what you’re used to, and requires the heaviest payload. Using this option, you’ll get the maximum amount of information about the data coming your way, and you’ll also have to send more as well.

accept: application/json; odata=minimalmetadata

This is the middle ground. You’ll get some metdata, and you’ll also need to send some, but it’s less.

accept: application/json; odata=nometadata

This option means we won’t get any metadata and we also don’t have to send any.

accept: application/json

If you don’t specify the odata setting at all, it will default to odata=minimalmetadata.

You can use these settings both on the inbound and outbound part of your REST calls.

Content-Type: "accept: application/json; odata=minimalmetadata"

means that you are sending data that contains minimal metadata.

Likewise,

Accept: "accept: application/json; odata=verbose"

means that you want to receive data with full metadata information.

In many cases, you’ll want to use odata=verbose as you’re debugging and switch to odata=nometadata once you move into production. The metadata tells you a lot about the data coming and going and can be helpful as you build up your calls. If you don’t make that switch, there will be more data going down the wire, though in many cases that doesn’t matter too much. Since I learned to code back when nibbles were expensive storage, I tend to want to reduce data size as much as I can, though.

Unfortunately, I don’t think many SharePoint developers realize what all this can do for you. I hear people say all the time that REST calls are too “chatty”. In many cases, that’s simply not true; you developers are making things too chatty!

This allows you to switch from something like:

var data = {
  "__metadata": {
    "type": "SP.Data.FC_x0020_RunsListItem"
  },
  "Title": run.RunID,
  "RunDate": run.RunDate,
  "OperatorId": run.Operator.Id,
  "DataIDs": dataIds.join(","),
  "FCData": angular.toJson(run.samples)
};

var request = {
  method: 'POST',
  url: url,
  data: JSON.stringify(data),
  headers: {
    "Accept": "application/json; odata=verbose",
    "content-type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
    "X-RequestDigest": document.getElementById("__REQUESTDIGEST").value,
    "X-HTTP-Method": method,
    "IF-MATCH": "*"
  }
};

to:

var data = {
  "Title": run.RunID,
  "RunDate": run.RunDate,
  "OperatorId": run.Operator.Id,
  "DataIDs": dataIds.join(","),
  "FCData": angular.toJson(run.samples)
};

var request = {
  method: 'POST',
  url: url,
  data: JSON.stringify(data),
  headers: {
    "Accept": "application/json",
    "content-type": "application/json;odata=nometadata",
    "X-RequestDigest": document.getElementById("__REQUESTDIGEST").value,
    "X-HTTP-Method": method,
    "IF-MATCH": "*"
  }
};

This is a real example from some of my code in a client project. It may not look like a huge savings, but if you are passing a lot of data either way, it can make a difference.

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UPDATE on 3 May: Tip from Mikael Svenson (@mikaelsvenson) – If you’re running on premises SharePoint 2013, you may need to enable the multiple metadata formats for JSON. See:

• Using JSON Light with on premise SharePoint 2013
• How to turn on and off the multiple metadata formats for JSON in SharePoint Server 2013