Response Structure
In this version of LAARC Catalogue Search API the response format is an xml document.
In the future we may offer other response formats such as json, html, csv or name=value strings.
The root of the response is a SearchResult element.
The summary of the SearchResult members is given on the left panel of this page.
There are 2 outcomes of any search operation:
- Positive, i.e. the data was found and returned to the client
- Negative, i.e. the data for some reason was not returned to the client
If the outcome of the search is negative, an Error element of the SearchResult would contain the details as well as the attribute Success of the root element SearchResult will be set to false.
If the outcome is positive the Success attribute will be set to true, the Error element will be empty and the element ResultSet will contain data.
The child elements of the ResultSet correspond to the list of domain objects.
The type of listed domain objects is indicated by the ResultSetType attribute of the root element SearchResult. The sub-elements of each domain object element are the properties of that domain object. They roughly correspond to the database table fields. The ID fields and unique codes by which the object can be uniquely identified in most cases are presented as attributes rather then sub-elements. The important relationship identifiers (e.g. foreign keys) are also presented as attributes.
The search criteria, i.e. the query parameters given in the URL query string, are translated into 3 objects - SearchCriteria, DisplayCriteria and ResultPager.
Each of these objects lists the criteria as element attributes.
The element has no attributes if no criteria is defined for a respective criteria object. They are included in the response for the client’s convenience to match the search request with the data returned in the response.