Calling Web Services via Curl

Rather than using the Graphical User Interface, the Fusion Metadata Registry can perform operations by calling its Web Services. Examples of these are the Data Validation and Data Transformation Web Services. These can be invoked by a tool such as Postman, but this page aims to give some guidance on using the UNIX tool "curl" to invoke these Web Services.

Use of Curl

The following shows an example use of curl to the Fusion Metadata Registry.

  curl -X POST 
    --header "Content-Type:application/text" 
    --header "Accept: application/vnd.sdmx.structurespecificdata+xml;version=2.1" 
    --header "Structure:urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.datastructure.Dataflow=OECD:DF_BATIS_EBOPS2010(1.0)" 
    --data-binary "@My Input File.csv" 
    http://localhost:8080/FusionRegistry/ws/public/data/transform 
    > Generated.xml

The above specifies:

• curl is performing a POST operation
• The Header parameter of "Content-Type" is set to application/text
• The Header parameter of "Accept" is set to output in SDMX-ML Structure Specific 2.1 form
• The input file is an SDMX-CSV input file called "My Input File.csv"
• The Registry is accessible at: http://localhost:8080/FusionRegistry and the transform Web Service is : /ws/public/data/transform
• The output is beng redirected into the file "Generated.xml"

Use of data-binary

It is highly recommended to specify your file with the "--data-binary" option. Curl's -d option will strip out newline characters so is fine when validating / transforming XML but not for when you are processing CSV or Microsoft Excel files.