API guide

This section documents CKAN’s API, for developers who want to write code that interacts with CKAN sites and their data.

CKAN’s Action API is a powerful, RPC-style API that exposes all of CKAN’s core features to API clients. All of a CKAN website’s core functionality (everything you can do with the web interface and more) can be used by external code that calls the CKAN API. For example, using the CKAN API your app can:

Note

CKAN’s FileStore and DataStore have their own APIs, see:

Note

For documentation of CKAN’s legacy API’s, see Legacy APIs.

Note

On early CKAN versions, datasets were called “packages” and this name has stuck in some places, specially internally and on API calls. Package has exactly the same meaning as “dataset”.

Making an API request

To call the CKAN API, post a JSON dictionary in an HTTP POST request to one of CKAN’s API URLs. The parameters for the API function should be given in the JSON dictionary. CKAN will also return its response in a JSON dictionary.

One way to post a JSON dictionary to a URL is using the command-line HTTP client HTTPie. For example, to get a list of the names of all the datasets in the data-explorer group on demo.ckan.org, install HTTPie and then call the group_list API function by running this command in a terminal:

http http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/group_list

The response from CKAN will look like this:

{
    "help": "...",
    "result": [
        "data-explorer",
        "department-of-ricky",
        "geo-examples",
        "geothermal-data",
        "reykjavik",
        "skeenawild-conservation-trust"
    ],
    "success": true
}

The response is a JSON dictionary with three keys:

  1. "success": true or false.

    The API aims to always return 200 OK as the status code of its HTTP response, whether there were errors with the request or not, so it’s important to always check the value of the "success" key in the response dictionary and (if success is false) check the value of the "error" key.

Note

If there are major formatting problems with a request to the API, CKAN may still return an HTTP response with a 409, 400 or 500 status code (in increasing order of severity). In future CKAN versions we intend to remove these responses, and instead send a 200 OK response and use the "success" and "error" items.

  1. "result": the returned result from the function you called. The type and value of the result depend on which function you called. In the case of the group_list function it’s a list of strings, the names of all the datasets that belong to the group.

    If there was an error responding to your request, the dictionary will contain an "error" key with details of the error instead of the "result" key. A response dictionary containing an error will look like this:

    {
    "help": "Creates a package",
    "success": false,
    "error": {
        "message": "Access denied",
        "__type": "Authorization Error"
        }
 }

  2. "help": the documentation string for the function you called.

The same HTTP request can be made using Python’s standard urllib2 module, with this Python code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import urllib2
import urllib
import json
import pprint

# Make the HTTP request.
response = urllib2.urlopen('http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/group_list',
        data_string)
assert response.code == 200

# Use the json module to load CKAN's response into a dictionary.
response_dict = json.loads(response.read())

# Check the contents of the response.
assert response_dict['success'] is True
result = response_dict['result']
pprint.pprint(result)

Example: Importing datasets with the CKAN API

You can add datasets using CKAN’s web interface, but when importing many datasets it’s usually more efficient to automate the process in some way. In this example, we’ll show you how to use the CKAN API to write a Python script to import datasets into CKAN.

Todo

Make this script more interesting (eg. read data from a CSV file), and all put the script in a .py file somewhere with tests and import it here.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import urllib2
import urllib
import json
import pprint

# Put the details of the dataset we're going to create into a dict.
dataset_dict = {
    'name': 'my_dataset_name',
    'notes': 'A long description of my dataset',
}

# Use the json module to dump the dictionary to a string for posting.
data_string = urllib.quote(json.dumps(dataset_dict))

# We'll use the package_create function to create a new dataset.
request = urllib2.Request(
    'http://www.my_ckan_site.com/api/action/package_create')

# Creating a dataset requires an authorization header.
# Replace *** with your API key, from your user account on the CKAN site
# that you're creating the dataset on.
request.add_header('Authorization', '***')

# Make the HTTP request.
response = urllib2.urlopen(request, data_string)
assert response.code == 200

# Use the json module to load CKAN's response into a dictionary.
response_dict = json.loads(response.read())
assert response_dict['success'] is True

# package_create returns the created package as its result.
created_package = response_dict['result']
pprint.pprint(created_package)

For more examples, see API Examples.

API versions

The CKAN APIs are versioned. If you make a request to an API URL without a version number, CKAN will choose the latest version of the API:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/action/package_list

Alternatively, you can specify the desired API version number in the URL that you request:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/package_list

Version 3 is currently the only version of the Action API.

We recommend that you specify the API number in your requests, because this ensures that your API client will work across different sites running different version of CKAN (and will keep working on the same sites, when those sites upgrade to new versions of CKAN). Because the latest version of the API may change when a site is upgraded to a new version of CKAN, or may differ on different sites running different versions of CKAN, the result of an API request that doesn’t specify the API version number cannot be relied on.

Authentication and API keys

Some API functions require authorization. The API uses the same authorization functions and configuration as the web interface, so if a user is authorized to do something in the web interface they’ll be authorized to do it via the API as well.

When calling an API function that requires authorization, you must authenticate yourself by providing your API key with your HTTP request. To find your API key, login to the CKAN site using its web interface and visit your user profile page.

To provide your API key in an HTTP request, include it in either an Authorization or X-CKAN-API-Key header. (The name of the HTTP header can be configured with the apikey_header_name option in your CKAN configuration file.)

For example, to ask whether or not you’re currently following the user markw on demo.ckan.org using HTTPie, run this command:

http http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/am_following_user id=markw Authorization:XXX

(Replacing XXX with your API key.)

Or, to get the list of activities from your user dashboard on demo.ckan.org, run this Python code:

request = urllib2.Request('http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/dashboard_activity_list')
request.add_header('Authorization', 'XXX')
response_dict = json.loads(urllib2.urlopen(request, '{}').read())

GET-able API functions

Functions defined in ckan.logic.action.get can also be called with an HTTP GET request. For example, to get the list of datasets (packages) from demo.ckan.org, open this URL in your browser:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/package_list

Or, to search for datasets (packages) matching the search query spending, on demo.ckan.org, open this URL in your browser:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/package_search?q=spending

Tip

Browser plugins like JSONView for Firefox or Chrome will format and color CKAN’s JSON response nicely in your browser.

The search query is given as a URL parameter ?q=spending. Multiple URL parameters can be appended, separated by & characters, for example to get only the first 10 matching datasets open this URL:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/package_search?q=spending&rows=10

When an action requires a list of strings as the value of a parameter, the value can be sent by giving the parameter multiple times in the URL:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/term_translation_show?terms=russian&terms=romantic%20novel

JSONP support

To cater for scripts from other sites that wish to access the API, the data can be returned in JSONP format, where the JSON data is ‘padded’ with a function call. The function is named in the ‘callback’ parameter. For example:

http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/package_show?id=adur_district_spending&callback=myfunction

Note

This only works for GET requests

API Examples

Tags (not in a vocabulary)

A list of all tags:

Top 10 tags used by datasets:

All datasets that have tag ‘economy’:

Tag Vocabularies

Top 10 tags and vocabulary tags used by datasets:

e.g. Facet: vocab_Topics means there is a vocabulary called Topics, and its top tags are listed under it.

A list of datasets using tag ‘education’ from vocabulary ‘Topics’:

Uploading a new version of a resource file

You can use the upload parameter of the resource_update() function to upload a new version of a resource file. This requires a multipart/form-data request, with httpie you can do this using the @file.csv:

http --json POST http://demo.ckan.org/api/3/action/resource_update id=<resource id> upload=@updated_file.csv Authorization:<api key>

Action API reference

Note

If you call one of the action functions listed below and the function raises an exception, the API will return a JSON dictionary with keys "success": false and and an "error" key indicating the exception that was raised.

For example member_list() (which returns a list of the members of a group) raises NotFound if the group doesn’t exist. If you called it over the API, you’d get back a JSON dict like this:

{
    "success": false
    "error": {
        "__type": "Not Found Error",
        "message": "Not found"
    },
    "help": "...",
}

ckan.logic.action.get

API functions for searching for and getting data from CKAN.

ckan.logic.action.get.site_read(context, data_dict=None)

Return True.

Return type:boolean
ckan.logic.action.get.package_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the names of the site’s datasets (packages).

Parameters:
  • limit (int) – if given, the list of datasets will be broken into pages of at most limit datasets per page and only one page will be returned at a time (optional)
  • offset (int) – when limit is given, the offset to start returning packages from
Return type:

list of strings
ckan.logic.action.get.current_package_list_with_resources(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the site’s datasets (packages) and their resources.

The list is sorted most-recently-modified first.

Parameters:
  • limit (int) – if given, the list of datasets will be broken into pages of at most limit datasets per page and only one page will be returned at a time (optional)
  • offset (int) – when limit is given, the offset to start returning packages from
  • page (int) – when limit is given, which page to return, Deprecated: use offset
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.revision_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the IDs of the site’s revisions. They are sorted with the newest first.

Since the results are limited to 50 IDs, you can page through them using parameter since_id.

Parameters:
  • since_id – the revision ID after which you want the revisions
  • since_time – the timestamp after which you want the revisions
  • sort (string) – the order to sort the related items in, possible values are ‘time_asc’, ‘time_desc’ (default). (optional)
Return type:

list of revision IDs, limited to 50
ckan.logic.action.get.package_revision_list(context, data_dict)

Return a dataset (package)’s revisions as a list of dictionaries.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset
ckan.logic.action.get.member_list(context, data_dict=None)

Return the members of a group.

The user must have permission to ‘get’ the group.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • object_type (string) – restrict the members returned to those of a given type, e.g. 'user' or 'package' (optional, default: None)
  • capacity (string) – restrict the members returned to those with a given capacity, e.g. 'member', 'editor', 'admin', 'public', 'private' (optional, default: None)
Return type:

list of (id, type, capacity) tuples
Raises:

ckan.logic.NotFound: if the group doesn’t exist
ckan.logic.action.get.group_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the names of the site’s groups.

Parameters:
  • order_by (string) – the field to sort the list by, must be 'name' or 'packages' (optional, default: 'name') Deprecated use sort.
  • sort (string) – sorting of the search results. Optional. Default: “name asc” string of field name and sort-order. The allowed fields are ‘name’, ‘package_count’ and ‘title’
  • limit (int) – if given, the list of groups will be broken into pages of at most limit groups per page and only one page will be returned at a time (optional)
  • offset (int) – when limit is given, the offset to start returning groups from
  • groups (list of strings) – a list of names of the groups to return, if given only groups whose names are in this list will be returned (optional)
  • all_fields (boolean) – return group dictionaries instead of just names. Only core fields are returned - get some more using the include_* options. Returning a list of packages is too expensive, so the packages property for each group is deprecated, but there is a count of the packages in the package_count property. (optional, default: False)
  • include_extras (boolean) – if all_fields, include the group extra fields (optional, default: False)
  • include_tags (boolean) – if all_fields, include the group tags (optional, default: False)
  • include_groups (boolean) – if all_fields, include the groups the groups are in (optional, default: False).
  • include_users (boolean) – if all_fields, include the group users (optional, default: False).
Return type:

list of strings
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the names of the site’s organizations.

Parameters:
  • order_by (string) – the field to sort the list by, must be 'name' or 'packages' (optional, default: 'name') Deprecated use sort.
  • sort (string) – sorting of the search results. Optional. Default: “name asc” string of field name and sort-order. The allowed fields are ‘name’, ‘package_count’ and ‘title’
  • limit (int) – if given, the list of organizations will be broken into pages of at most limit organizations per page and only one page will be returned at a time (optional)
  • offset (int) – when limit is given, the offset to start returning organizations from
  • organizations (list of strings) – a list of names of the groups to return, if given only groups whose names are in this list will be returned (optional)
  • all_fields (boolean) – return group dictionaries instead of just names. Only core fields are returned - get some more using the include_* options. Returning a list of packages is too expensive, so the packages property for each group is deprecated, but there is a count of the packages in the package_count property. (optional, default: False)
  • include_extras (boolean) – if all_fields, include the organization extra fields (optional, default: False)
  • include_tags (boolean) – if all_fields, include the organization tags (optional, default: False)
  • include_groups – if all_fields, include the organizations the organizations are in (optional, default: False)
  • include_users (boolean) – if all_fields, include the organization users (optional, default: False).
Return type:

list of strings
ckan.logic.action.get.group_list_authz(context, data_dict)

Return the list of groups that the user is authorized to edit.

Parameters:
  • available_only (boolean) – remove the existing groups in the package (optional, default: False)
  • am_member – if True return only the groups the logged-in user is a member of, otherwise return all groups that the user is authorized to edit (for example, sysadmin users are authorized to edit all groups) (optional, default: False)
Returns:

list of dictized groups that the user is authorized to edit
Return type:

list of dicts
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_list_for_user(context, data_dict)

Return the organizations that the user has a given permission for.

Specifically it returns the list of organizations that the currently authorized user has a given permission (for example: “manage_group”) against.

By default this returns the list of organizations that the currently authorized user is member of, in any capacity.

When a user becomes a member of an organization in CKAN they’re given a “capacity” (sometimes called a “role”), for example “member”, “editor” or “admin”.

Each of these roles has certain permissions associated with it. For example the admin role has the “admin” permission (which means they have permission to do anything). The editor role has permissions like “create_dataset”, “update_dataset” and “delete_dataset”. The member role has the “read” permission.

This function returns the list of organizations that the authorized user has a given permission for. For example the list of organizations that the user is an admin of, or the list of organizations that the user can create datasets in. This takes account of when permissions cascade down an organization hierarchy.

Parameters:
  • id – the name or id of the user to get the organization list for (optional, defaults to the currently authorized user (logged in or via API key))
  • permission (string) – the permission the user has against the returned organizations, for example "read" or "create_dataset" (optional, default: "manage_group")
Returns:

list of organizations that the user has the given permission for
Return type:

list of dicts
ckan.logic.action.get.group_revision_list(context, data_dict)

Return a group’s revisions.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the group
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_revision_list(context, data_dict)

Return an organization’s revisions.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the organization
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.license_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of licenses available for datasets on the site.

Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.tag_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the site’s tags.

By default only free tags (tags that don’t belong to a vocabulary) are returned. If the vocabulary_id argument is given then only tags belonging to that vocabulary will be returned instead.

Parameters:
  • query (string) – a tag name query to search for, if given only tags whose names contain this string will be returned (optional)
  • vocabulary_id (string) – the id or name of a vocabulary, if give only tags that belong to this vocabulary will be returned (optional)
  • all_fields (boolean) – return full tag dictionaries instead of just names (optional, default: False)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.user_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of the site’s user accounts.

Parameters:
  • q (string) – restrict the users returned to those whose names contain a string (optional)
  • order_by (string) – which field to sort the list by (optional, default: 'name'). Can be any user field or edits (i.e. number_of_edits).
  • all_fields (boolean) – return full user dictionaries instead of just names. (optional, default: True)
Return type:

list of user dictionaries. User properties include: number_of_edits which counts the revisions by the user and number_created_packages which excludes datasets which are private or draft state.
ckan.logic.action.get.package_relationships_list(context, data_dict)

Return a dataset (package)’s relationships.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the first package
  • id2 – the id or name of the second package
  • rel – relationship as string see package_relationship_create() for the relationship types (optional)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.package_show(context, data_dict)

Return the metadata of a dataset (package) and its resources.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the dataset
  • use_default_schema (bool) – use default package schema instead of a custom schema defined with an IDatasetForm plugin (default: False)
  • include_tracking (bool) – add tracking information to dataset and resources (default: False)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.resource_show(context, data_dict)

Return the metadata of a resource.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id of the resource
  • include_tracking (bool) – add tracking information to dataset and resources (default: False)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.resource_view_show(context, data_dict)

Return the metadata of a resource_view.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource_view
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.resource_view_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of resource views for a particular resource.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource
Return type:list of dictionaries.
ckan.logic.action.get.resource_status_show(context, data_dict)

Return the statuses of a resource’s tasks.

This function is DEPRECATED.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource
Return type:list of (status, date_done, traceback, task_status) dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.revision_show(context, data_dict)

Return the details of a revision.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the revision
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.group_show(context, data_dict)

Return the details of a group.

Parameters:
  • id (boolean) – the id or name of the group
  • include_datasets – include a list of the group’s datasets (optional, default: False)
  • include_extras – include the group’s extra fields (optional, default: True)
  • include_users – include the group’s users (optional, default: True)
  • include_groups – include the group’s sub groups (optional, default: True)
  • include_tags – include the group’s tags (optional, default: True)
  • include_followers – include the group’s number of followers (optional, default: True)
Return type:

dictionary

Note

Only its first 1000 datasets are returned

ckan.logic.action.get.organization_show(context, data_dict)

Return the details of a organization.

Parameters:
  • id (boolean) – the id or name of the organization
  • include_datasets – include a list of the organization’s datasets (optional, default: False)
  • include_extras – include the organization’s extra fields (optional, default: True)
  • include_users – include the organization’s users (optional, default: True)
  • include_groups – include the organization’s sub groups (optional, default: True)
  • include_tags – include the organization’s tags (optional, default: True)
  • include_followers – include the organization’s number of followers (optional, default: True)
Return type:

dictionary

Note

Only its first 1000 datasets are returned

ckan.logic.action.get.group_package_show(context, data_dict)

Return the datasets (packages) of a group.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of datasets to return (optional)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.tag_show(context, data_dict)

Return the details of a tag and all its datasets.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the name or id of the tag
  • vocabulary_id (string) – the id or name of the tag vocabulary that the tag is in - if it is not specified it will assume it is a free tag. (optional)
  • include_datasets (bool) – include a list of the tag’s datasets. (Up to a limit of 1000 - for more flexibility, use package_search - see package_search() for an example.) (optional, default: False)
Returns:

the details of the tag, including a list of all of the tag’s datasets and their details
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.user_show(context, data_dict)

Return a user account.

Either the id or the user_obj parameter must be given.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the user (optional)
  • user_obj (user dictionary) – the user dictionary of the user (optional)
  • include_datasets (boolean) – Include a list of datasets the user has created. If it is the same user or a sysadmin requesting, it includes datasets that are draft or private. (optional, default:False, limit:50)
  • include_num_followers (boolean) – Include the number of followers the user has (optional, default:False)
  • include_password_hash (boolean) – Include the stored password hash (sysadmin only, optional, default:False)
Returns:

the details of the user. Includes email_hash, number_of_edits and number_created_packages (which excludes draft or private datasets unless it is the same user or sysadmin making the request). Excludes the password (hash) and reset_key. If it is the same user or a sysadmin requesting, the email and apikey are included.
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.package_autocomplete(context, data_dict)

Return a list of datasets (packages) that match a string.

Datasets with names or titles that contain the query string will be returned.

Parameters:
  • q (string) – the string to search for
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of resource formats to return (optional, default: 10)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.format_autocomplete(context, data_dict)

Return a list of resource formats whose names contain a string.

Parameters:
  • q (string) – the string to search for
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of resource formats to return (optional, default: 5)
Return type:

list of strings
ckan.logic.action.get.user_autocomplete(context, data_dict)

Return a list of user names that contain a string.

Parameters:
  • q (string) – the string to search for
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of user names to return (optional, default: 20)
Return type:

a list of user dictionaries each with keys 'name', 'fullname', and 'id'
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_autocomplete(context, data_dict)

Return a list of organization names that contain a string.

Parameters:
  • q (string) – the string to search for
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of organizations to return (optional, default: 20)
Return type:

a list of organization dictionaries each with keys 'name', 'title', and 'id'

Searches for packages satisfying a given search criteria.

This action accepts solr search query parameters (details below), and returns a dictionary of results, including dictized datasets that match the search criteria, a search count and also facet information.

Solr Parameters:

For more in depth treatment of each paramter, please read the Solr Documentation.

This action accepts a subset of solr’s search query parameters:

Parameters:
  • q (string) – the solr query. Optional. Default: "*:*"
  • fq (string) – any filter queries to apply. Note: +site_id:{ckan_site_id} is added to this string prior to the query being executed.
  • sort (string) – sorting of the search results. Optional. Default: 'relevance asc, metadata_modified desc'. As per the solr documentation, this is a comma-separated string of field names and sort-orderings.
  • rows (int) – the number of matching rows to return. There is a hard limit of 1000 datasets per query.
  • start (int) – the offset in the complete result for where the set of returned datasets should begin.
  • facet (string) – whether to enable faceted results. Default: True.
  • facet.mincount (int) – the minimum counts for facet fields should be included in the results.
  • facet.limit (int) – the maximum number of values the facet fields return. A negative value means unlimited. This can be set instance-wide with the search.facets.limit config option. Default is 50.
  • facet.field (list of strings) – the fields to facet upon. Default empty. If empty, then the returned facet information is empty.
  • include_drafts (boolean) – if True, draft datasets will be included in the results. A user will only be returned their own draft datasets, and a sysadmin will be returned all draft datasets. Optional, the default is False.
  • include_private – if True, private datasets will be included in the results. Only private datasets from the user’s organizations will be returned and sysadmins will be returned all private datasets. Optional, the default is False.
  • use_default_schema (bool) – use default package schema instead of a custom schema defined with an IDatasetForm plugin (default: False)

The following advanced Solr parameters are supported as well. Note that some of these are only available on particular Solr versions. See Solr’s dismax and edismax documentation for further details on them:

qf, wt, bf, boost, tie, defType, mm

Examples:

q=flood datasets containing the word flood, floods or flooding fq=tags:economy datasets with the tag economy facet.field=["tags"] facet.limit=10 rows=0 top 10 tags

Results:

The result of this action is a dict with the following keys:

Return type:

A dictionary with the following keys
Parameters:
  • count (int) – the number of results found. Note, this is the total number of results found, not the total number of results returned (which is affected by limit and row parameters used in the input).
  • results (list of dictized datasets.) – ordered list of datasets matching the query, where the ordering defined by the sort parameter used in the query.
  • facets (DEPRECATED dict) – DEPRECATED. Aggregated information about facet counts.
  • search_facets (nested dict of dicts.) – aggregated information about facet counts. The outer dict is keyed by the facet field name (as used in the search query). Each entry of the outer dict is itself a dict, with a “title” key, and an “items” key. The “items” key’s value is a list of dicts, each with “count”, “display_name” and “name” entries. The display_name is a form of the name that can be used in titles.

An example result:

{'count': 2,
 'results': [ { <snip> }, { <snip> }],
 'search_facets': {u'tags': {'items': [{'count': 1,
                                        'display_name': u'tolstoy',
                                        'name': u'tolstoy'},
                                       {'count': 2,
                                        'display_name': u'russian',
                                        'name': u'russian'}
                                      ]
                            }
                  }
}

Limitations:

The full solr query language is not exposed, including.

fl
The parameter that controls which fields are returned in the solr query cannot be changed. CKAN always returns the matched datasets as dictionary objects.

Searches for resources satisfying a given search criteria.

It returns a dictionary with 2 fields: count and results. The count field contains the total number of Resources found without the limit or query parameters having an effect. The results field is a list of dictized Resource objects.

The ‘query’ parameter is a required field. It is a string of the form {field}:{term} or a list of strings, each of the same form. Within each string, {field} is a field or extra field on the Resource domain object.

If {field} is "hash", then an attempt is made to match the {term} as a prefix of the Resource.hash field.

If {field} is an extra field, then an attempt is made to match against the extra fields stored against the Resource.

Note: The search is limited to search against extra fields declared in the config setting ckan.extra_resource_fields.

Note: Due to a Resource’s extra fields being stored as a json blob, the match is made against the json string representation. As such, false positives may occur:

If the search criteria is:

query = "field1:term1"

Then a json blob with the string representation of:

{"field1": "foo", "field2": "term1"}

will match the search criteria! This is a known short-coming of this approach.

All matches are made ignoring case; and apart from the "hash" field, a term matches if it is a substring of the field’s value.

Finally, when specifying more than one search criteria, the criteria are AND-ed together.

The order parameter is used to control the ordering of the results. Currently only ordering one field is available, and in ascending order only.

The fields parameter is deprecated as it is not compatible with calling this action with a GET request to the action API.

The context may contain a flag, search_query, which if True will make this action behave as if being used by the internal search api. ie - the results will not be dictized, and SearchErrors are thrown for bad search queries (rather than ValidationErrors).

Parameters:
  • query (string or list of strings of the form {field}:{term1}) – The search criteria. See above for description.
  • fields (dict of fields to search terms.) – Deprecated
  • order_by (string) – A field on the Resource model that orders the results.
  • offset (int) – Apply an offset to the query.
  • limit (int) – Apply a limit to the query.
Returns:

A dictionary with a count field, and a results field.
Return type:

dict

Return a list of tags whose names contain a given string.

By default only free tags (tags that don’t belong to any vocabulary) are searched. If the vocabulary_id argument is given then only tags belonging to that vocabulary will be searched instead.

Parameters:
  • query (string or list of strings) – the string(s) to search for
  • vocabulary_id (string) – the id or name of the tag vocabulary to search in (optional)
  • fields (dictionary) – deprecated
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of tags to return
  • offset (int) – when limit is given, the offset to start returning tags from
Returns:

A dictionary with the following keys:

'count'

The number of tags in the result.

'results'

The list of tags whose names contain the given string, a list of dictionaries.
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.tag_autocomplete(context, data_dict)

Return a list of tag names that contain a given string.

By default only free tags (tags that don’t belong to any vocabulary) are searched. If the vocabulary_id argument is given then only tags belonging to that vocabulary will be searched instead.

Parameters:
  • query (string) – the string to search for
  • vocabulary_id (string) – the id or name of the tag vocabulary to search in (optional)
  • fields (dictionary) – deprecated
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of tags to return
  • offset (int) – when limit is given, the offset to start returning tags from
Return type:

list of strings
ckan.logic.action.get.task_status_show(context, data_dict)

Return a task status.

Either the id parameter or the entity_id, task_type and key parameters must be given.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id of the task status (optional)
  • entity_id (string) – the entity_id of the task status (optional)
  • task_type – the task_type of the task status (optional)
  • key (string) – the key of the task status (optional)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.term_translation_show(context, data_dict)

Return the translations for the given term(s) and language(s).

Parameters:
  • terms (list of strings) – the terms to search for translations of, e.g. 'Russian', 'romantic novel'
  • lang_codes (list of language code strings) – the language codes of the languages to search for translations into, e.g. 'en', 'de' (optional, default is to search for translations into any language)
Return type:

a list of term translation dictionaries each with keys 'term' (the term searched for, in the source language), 'term_translation' (the translation of the term into the target language) and 'lang_code' (the language code of the target language)
ckan.logic.action.get.get_site_user(context, data_dict)

Return the ckan site user

Parameters:defer_commit (boolean) – by default (or if set to false) get_site_user will commit and clean up the current transaction. If set to true, caller is responsible for commiting transaction after get_site_user is called. Leaving open connections can cause cli commands to hang! (optional, default: False)
ckan.logic.action.get.status_show(context, data_dict)

Return a dictionary with information about the site’s configuration.

Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.vocabulary_list(context, data_dict)

Return a list of all the site’s tag vocabularies.

Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.vocabulary_show(context, data_dict)

Return a single tag vocabulary.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the vocabulary
Returns:the vocabulary.
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.get.user_activity_list(context, data_dict)

Return a user’s public activity stream.

You must be authorized to view the user’s profile.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the user
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.package_activity_list(context, data_dict)

Return a package’s activity stream.

You must be authorized to view the package.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the package
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.group_activity_list(context, data_dict)

Return a group’s activity stream.

You must be authorized to view the group.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_activity_list(context, data_dict)

Return a organization’s activity stream.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the organization
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.recently_changed_packages_activity_list(context, data_dict)

Return the activity stream of all recently added or changed packages.

Parameters:
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.activity_detail_list(context, data_dict)

Return an activity’s list of activity detail items.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the activity
Return type:list of dictionaries.
ckan.logic.action.get.user_activity_list_html(context, data_dict)

Return a user’s public activity stream as HTML.

The activity stream is rendered as a snippet of HTML meant to be included in an HTML page, i.e. it doesn’t have any HTML header or footer.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – The id or name of the user.
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

string
ckan.logic.action.get.package_activity_list_html(context, data_dict)

Return a package’s activity stream as HTML.

The activity stream is rendered as a snippet of HTML meant to be included in an HTML page, i.e. it doesn’t have any HTML header or footer.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the package
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

string
ckan.logic.action.get.group_activity_list_html(context, data_dict)

Return a group’s activity stream as HTML.

The activity stream is rendered as a snippet of HTML meant to be included in an HTML page, i.e. it doesn’t have any HTML header or footer.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

string
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_activity_list_html(context, data_dict)

Return a organization’s activity stream as HTML.

The activity stream is rendered as a snippet of HTML meant to be included in an HTML page, i.e. it doesn’t have any HTML header or footer.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the organization
Return type:string
ckan.logic.action.get.recently_changed_packages_activity_list_html(context, data_dict)

Return the activity stream of all recently changed packages as HTML.

The activity stream includes all recently added or changed packages. It is rendered as a snippet of HTML meant to be included in an HTML page, i.e. it doesn’t have any HTML header or footer.

Parameters:
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

string
ckan.logic.action.get.user_follower_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of followers of a user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.dataset_follower_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of followers of a dataset.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.group_follower_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of followers of a group.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the group
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_follower_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of followers of an organization.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the organization
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.user_follower_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of users that are following the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.dataset_follower_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of users that are following the given dataset.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.group_follower_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of users that are following the given group.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the group
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_follower_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of users that are following the given organization.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the organization
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.am_following_user(context, data_dict)

Return True if you’re following the given user, False if not.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user
Return type:boolean
ckan.logic.action.get.am_following_dataset(context, data_dict)

Return True if you’re following the given dataset, False if not.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset
Return type:boolean
ckan.logic.action.get.am_following_group(context, data_dict)

Return True if you’re following the given group, False if not.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the group
Return type:boolean
ckan.logic.action.get.followee_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of objects that are followed by the given user.

Counts all objects, of any type, that the given user is following (e.g. followed users, followed datasets, followed groups).

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the user
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.user_followee_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of users that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the user
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.dataset_followee_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of datasets that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the user
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.group_followee_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of groups that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the user
Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.followee_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of objects that are followed by the given user.

Returns all objects, of any type, that the given user is following (e.g. followed users, followed datasets, followed groups.. ).

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id of the user
  • q (string) – a query string to limit results by, only objects whose display name begins with the given string (case-insensitive) wil be returned (optional)
Return type:

list of dictionaries, each with keys 'type' (e.g. 'user', 'dataset' or 'group'), 'display_name' (e.g. a user’s display name, or a package’s title) and 'dict' (e.g. a dict representing the followed user, package or group, the same as the dict that would be returned by user_show(), package_show() or group_show())
ckan.logic.action.get.user_followee_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of users that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the user
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.dataset_followee_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of datasets that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.group_followee_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of groups that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.organization_followee_list(context, data_dict)

Return the list of organizations that are followed by the given user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.dashboard_activity_list(context, data_dict)
Return the authorized (via login or API key) user’s dashboard activity
stream.

Unlike the activity dictionaries returned by other *_activity_list actions, these activity dictionaries have an extra boolean value with key is_new that tells you whether the activity happened since the user last viewed her dashboard ('is_new': True) or not ('is_new': False).

The user’s own activities are always marked 'is_new': False.

Parameters:
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

list of activity dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.dashboard_activity_list_html(context, data_dict)
Return the authorized (via login or API key) user’s dashboard activity
stream as HTML.

The activity stream is rendered as a snippet of HTML meant to be included in an HTML page, i.e. it doesn’t have any HTML header or footer.

Parameters:
  • offset (int) – where to start getting activity items from (optional, default: 0)
  • limit (int) – the maximum number of activities to return (optional, default: 31, the default value is configurable via the ckan.activity_list_limit setting)
Return type:

string
ckan.logic.action.get.dashboard_new_activities_count(context, data_dict)

Return the number of new activities in the user’s dashboard.

Return the number of new activities in the authorized user’s dashboard activity stream.

Activities from the user herself are not counted by this function even though they appear in the dashboard (users don’t want to be notified about things they did themselves).

Return type:int
ckan.logic.action.get.member_roles_list(context, data_dict)

Return the possible roles for members of groups and organizations.

Parameters:group_type – the group type, either "group" or "organization" (optional, default "organization")
Returns:a list of dictionaries each with two keys: "text" (the display name of the role, e.g. "Admin") and "value" (the internal name of the role, e.g. "admin")
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.get.help_show(context, data_dict)

Return the help string for a particular API action.

Parameters:name (string) – Action function name (eg user_create, package_search)
Returns:The help string for the action function, or None if the function does not have a docstring.
Return type:string
Raises:ckan.logic.NotFound: if the action function doesn’t exist
ckan.logic.action.get.config_option_show(context, data_dict)

Show the current value of a particular configuration option.

Only returns runtime-editable config options (the ones returned by config_option_list()), which can be updated with the config_option_update() action.

Parameters:key (string) – The configuration option key
Returns:The value of the config option from either the system_info table or ini file.
Return type:string
Raises:ckan.logic.ValidationError: if config option is not in the schema (whitelisted as editable).
ckan.logic.action.get.config_option_list(context, data_dict)
Return a list of runtime-editable config options keys that can be
updated with config_option_update().
Returns:A list of config option keys.
Return type:list
ckan.logic.action.get.job_list(context, data_dict)

List enqueued background jobs.

Parameters:queues (list) – Queues to list jobs from. If not given then the jobs from all queues are listed.
Returns:The currently enqueued background jobs.
Return type:list

New in version 2.7.

ckan.logic.action.get.job_show(context, data_dict)

Show details for a background job.

Parameters:id (string) – The ID of the background job.
Returns:Details about the background job.
Return type:dict

New in version 2.7.

ckan.logic.action.create

API functions for adding data to CKAN.

ckan.logic.action.create.package_create(context, data_dict)

Create a new dataset (package).

You must be authorized to create new datasets. If you specify any groups for the new dataset, you must also be authorized to edit these groups.

Plugins may change the parameters of this function depending on the value of the type parameter, see the IDatasetForm plugin interface.

Parameters:
  • name (string) – the name of the new dataset, must be between 2 and 100 characters long and contain only lowercase alphanumeric characters, - and _, e.g. 'warandpeace'
  • title (string) – the title of the dataset (optional, default: same as name)
  • author (string) – the name of the dataset’s author (optional)
  • author_email (string) – the email address of the dataset’s author (optional)
  • maintainer (string) – the name of the dataset’s maintainer (optional)
  • maintainer_email (string) – the email address of the dataset’s maintainer (optional)
  • license_id (license id string) – the id of the dataset’s license, see license_list() for available values (optional)
  • notes (string) – a description of the dataset (optional)
  • url (string) – a URL for the dataset’s source (optional)
  • version (string, no longer than 100 characters) – (optional)
  • state (string) – the current state of the dataset, e.g. 'active' or 'deleted', only active datasets show up in search results and other lists of datasets, this parameter will be ignored if you are not authorized to change the state of the dataset (optional, default: 'active')
  • type (string) – the type of the dataset (optional), IDatasetForm plugins associate themselves with different dataset types and provide custom dataset handling behaviour for these types
  • resources (list of resource dictionaries) – the dataset’s resources, see resource_create() for the format of resource dictionaries (optional)
  • tags (list of tag dictionaries) – the dataset’s tags, see tag_create() for the format of tag dictionaries (optional)
  • extras (list of dataset extra dictionaries) – the dataset’s extras (optional), extras are arbitrary (key: value) metadata items that can be added to datasets, each extra dictionary should have keys 'key' (a string), 'value' (a string)
  • relationships_as_object (list of relationship dictionaries) – see package_relationship_create() for the format of relationship dictionaries (optional)
  • relationships_as_subject (list of relationship dictionaries) – see package_relationship_create() for the format of relationship dictionaries (optional)
  • groups (list of dictionaries) – the groups to which the dataset belongs (optional), each group dictionary should have one or more of the following keys which identify an existing group: 'id' (the id of the group, string), or 'name' (the name of the group, string), to see which groups exist call group_list()
  • owner_org (string) – the id of the dataset’s owning organization, see organization_list() or organization_list_for_user() for available values (optional)
Returns:

the newly created dataset (unless ‘return_id_only’ is set to True in the context, in which case just the dataset id will be returned)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.resource_create(context, data_dict)

Appends a new resource to a datasets list of resources.

Parameters:
  • package_id (string) – id of package that the resource should be added to.
  • url (string) – url of resource
  • revision_id (string) – (optional)
  • description (string) – (optional)
  • format (string) – (optional)
  • hash (string) – (optional)
  • name (string) – (optional)
  • resource_type (string) – (optional)
  • mimetype (string) – (optional)
  • mimetype_inner (string) – (optional)
  • cache_url (string) – (optional)
  • size (int) – (optional)
  • created (iso date string) – (optional)
  • last_modified (iso date string) – (optional)
  • cache_last_updated (iso date string) – (optional)
  • upload (FieldStorage (optional) needs multipart/form-data) – (optional)
Returns:

the newly created resource
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.resource_view_create(context, data_dict)

Creates a new resource view.

Parameters:
  • resource_id (string) – id of the resource
  • title (string) – the title of the view
  • description (string) – a description of the view (optional)
  • view_type (string) – type of view
  • config (JSON string) – options necessary to recreate a view state (optional)
Returns:

the newly created resource view
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.resource_create_default_resource_views(context, data_dict)

Creates the default views (if necessary) on the provided resource

The function will get the plugins for the default views defined in the configuration, and if some were found the can_view method of each one of them will be called to determine if a resource view should be created. Resource views extensions get the resource dict and the parent dataset dict.

If the latter is not provided, package_show is called to get it.

By default only view plugins that don’t require the resource data to be in the DataStore are called. See ckan.logic.action.create.package_create_default_resource_views.`() for details on the create_datastore_views parameter.

Parameters:
  • resource (dict) – full resource dict
  • package (dict) – full dataset dict (optional, if not provided package_show() will be called).
  • create_datastore_views (bool) – whether to create views that rely on data being on the DataStore (optional, defaults to False)
Returns:

a list of resource views created (empty if none were created)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.create.package_create_default_resource_views(context, data_dict)

Creates the default views on all resources of the provided dataset

By default only view plugins that don’t require the resource data to be in the DataStore are called. Passing create_datastore_views as True will only create views that require data to be in the DataStore. The first case happens when the function is called from package_create or package_update, the second when it’s called from the DataPusher when data was uploaded to the DataStore.

Parameters:
  • package (dict) – full dataset dict (ie the one obtained calling package_show()).
  • create_datastore_views (bool) – whether to create views that rely on data being on the DataStore (optional, defaults to False)
Returns:

a list of resource views created (empty if none were created)
Return type:

list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.create.package_relationship_create(context, data_dict)

Create a relationship between two datasets (packages).

You must be authorized to edit both the subject and the object datasets.

Parameters:
  • subject (string) – the id or name of the dataset that is the subject of the relationship
  • object – the id or name of the dataset that is the object of the relationship
  • type (string) – the type of the relationship, one of 'depends_on', 'dependency_of', 'derives_from', 'has_derivation', 'links_to', 'linked_from', 'child_of' or 'parent_of'
  • comment (string) – a comment about the relationship (optional)
Returns:

the newly created package relationship
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.member_create(context, data_dict=None)

Make an object (e.g. a user, dataset or group) a member of a group.

If the object is already a member of the group then the capacity of the membership will be updated.

You must be authorized to edit the group.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group to add the object to
  • object (string) – the id or name of the object to add
  • object_type (string) – the type of the object being added, e.g. 'package' or 'user'
  • capacity (string) – the capacity of the membership
Returns:

the newly created (or updated) membership
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.group_create(context, data_dict)

Create a new group.

You must be authorized to create groups.

Plugins may change the parameters of this function depending on the value of the type parameter, see the IGroupForm plugin interface.

Parameters:
  • name (string) – the name of the group, a string between 2 and 100 characters long, containing only lowercase alphanumeric characters, - and _
  • id (string) – the id of the group (optional)
  • title (string) – the title of the group (optional)
  • description (string) – the description of the group (optional)
  • image_url (string) – the URL to an image to be displayed on the group’s page (optional)
  • type (string) – the type of the group (optional), IGroupForm plugins associate themselves with different group types and provide custom group handling behaviour for these types Cannot be ‘organization’
  • state (string) – the current state of the group, e.g. 'active' or 'deleted', only active groups show up in search results and other lists of groups, this parameter will be ignored if you are not authorized to change the state of the group (optional, default: 'active')
  • approval_status (string) – (optional)
  • extras (list of dataset extra dictionaries) – the group’s extras (optional), extras are arbitrary (key: value) metadata items that can be added to groups, each extra dictionary should have keys 'key' (a string), 'value' (a string), and optionally 'deleted'
  • packages (list of dictionaries) – the datasets (packages) that belong to the group, a list of dictionaries each with keys 'name' (string, the id or name of the dataset) and optionally 'title' (string, the title of the dataset)
  • groups (list of dictionaries) – the groups that belong to the group, a list of dictionaries each with key 'name' (string, the id or name of the group) and optionally 'capacity' (string, the capacity in which the group is a member of the group)
  • users (list of dictionaries) – the users that belong to the group, a list of dictionaries each with key 'name' (string, the id or name of the user) and optionally 'capacity' (string, the capacity in which the user is a member of the group)
Returns:

the newly created group (unless ‘return_id_only’ is set to True in the context, in which case just the group id will be returned)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.organization_create(context, data_dict)

Create a new organization.

You must be authorized to create organizations.

Plugins may change the parameters of this function depending on the value of the type parameter, see the IGroupForm plugin interface.

Parameters:
  • name (string) – the name of the organization, a string between 2 and 100 characters long, containing only lowercase alphanumeric characters, - and _
  • id (string) – the id of the organization (optional)
  • title (string) – the title of the organization (optional)
  • description (string) – the description of the organization (optional)
  • image_url (string) – the URL to an image to be displayed on the organization’s page (optional)
  • state (string) – the current state of the organization, e.g. 'active' or 'deleted', only active organizations show up in search results and other lists of organizations, this parameter will be ignored if you are not authorized to change the state of the organization (optional, default: 'active')
  • approval_status (string) – (optional)
  • extras (list of dataset extra dictionaries) – the organization’s extras (optional), extras are arbitrary (key: value) metadata items that can be added to organizations, each extra dictionary should have keys 'key' (a string), 'value' (a string), and optionally 'deleted'
  • packages (list of dictionaries) – the datasets (packages) that belong to the organization, a list of dictionaries each with keys 'name' (string, the id or name of the dataset) and optionally 'title' (string, the title of the dataset)
  • users (list of dictionaries) – the users that belong to the organization, a list of dictionaries each with key 'name' (string, the id or name of the user) and optionally 'capacity' (string, the capacity in which the user is a member of the organization)
Returns:

the newly created organization (unless ‘return_id_only’ is set to True in the context, in which case just the organization id will be returned)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.rating_create(context, data_dict)

Rate a dataset (package).

You must provide your API key in the Authorization header.

Parameters:
  • package (string) – the name or id of the dataset to rate
  • rating (int) – the rating to give to the dataset, an integer between 1 and 5
Returns:

a dictionary with two keys: 'rating average' (the average rating of the dataset you rated) and 'rating count' (the number of times the dataset has been rated)
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.user_create(context, data_dict)

Create a new user.

You must be authorized to create users.

Parameters:
  • name (string) – the name of the new user, a string between 2 and 100 characters in length, containing only lowercase alphanumeric characters, - and _
  • email (string) – the email address for the new user
  • password (string) – the password of the new user, a string of at least 4 characters
  • id (string) – the id of the new user (optional)
  • fullname (string) – the full name of the new user (optional)
  • about (string) – a description of the new user (optional)
  • openid (string) – (optional)
Returns:

the newly created user
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.user_invite(context, data_dict)

Invite a new user.

You must be authorized to create group members.

Parameters:
  • email (string) – the email of the user to be invited to the group
  • group_id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • role (string) – role of the user in the group. One of member, editor, or admin
Returns:

the newly created user
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.vocabulary_create(context, data_dict)

Create a new tag vocabulary.

You must be a sysadmin to create vocabularies.

Parameters:
  • name (string) – the name of the new vocabulary, e.g. 'Genre'
  • tags (list of tag dictionaries) – the new tags to add to the new vocabulary, for the format of tag dictionaries see tag_create()
Returns:

the newly-created vocabulary
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.activity_create(context, activity_dict, **kw)

Create a new activity stream activity.

You must be a sysadmin to create new activities.

Parameters:
  • user_id (string) – the name or id of the user who carried out the activity, e.g. 'seanh'
  • object_id – the name or id of the object of the activity, e.g. 'my_dataset'
  • activity_type (string) – the type of the activity, this must be an activity type that CKAN knows how to render, e.g. 'new package', 'changed user', 'deleted group' etc.
  • data (dictionary) – any additional data about the activity
Returns:

the newly created activity
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.tag_create(context, data_dict)

Create a new vocabulary tag.

You must be a sysadmin to create vocabulary tags.

You can only use this function to create tags that belong to a vocabulary, not to create free tags. (To create a new free tag simply add the tag to a package, e.g. using the package_update() function.)

Parameters:
  • name (string) – the name for the new tag, a string between 2 and 100 characters long containing only alphanumeric characters and -, _ and ., e.g. 'Jazz'
  • vocabulary_id (string) – the id of the vocabulary that the new tag should be added to, e.g. the id of vocabulary 'Genre'
Returns:

the newly-created tag
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.follow_user(context, data_dict)

Start following another user.

You must provide your API key in the Authorization header.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user to follow, e.g. 'joeuser'
Returns:a representation of the ‘follower’ relationship between yourself and the other user
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.follow_dataset(context, data_dict)

Start following a dataset.

You must provide your API key in the Authorization header.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset to follow, e.g. 'warandpeace'
Returns:a representation of the ‘follower’ relationship between yourself and the dataset
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.group_member_create(context, data_dict)

Make a user a member of a group.

You must be authorized to edit the group.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • username (string) – name or id of the user to be made member of the group
  • role (string) – role of the user in the group. One of member, editor, or admin
Returns:

the newly created (or updated) membership
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.organization_member_create(context, data_dict)

Make a user a member of an organization.

You must be authorized to edit the organization.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the organization
  • username (string) – name or id of the user to be made member of the organization
  • role (string) – role of the user in the organization. One of member, editor, or admin
Returns:

the newly created (or updated) membership
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.create.follow_group(context, data_dict)

Start following a group.

You must provide your API key in the Authorization header.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the group to follow, e.g. 'roger'
Returns:a representation of the ‘follower’ relationship between yourself and the group
Return type:dictionary

ckan.logic.action.update

API functions for updating existing data in CKAN.

ckan.logic.action.update.resource_update(context, data_dict)

Update a resource.

To update a resource you must be authorized to update the dataset that the resource belongs to.

For further parameters see resource_create().

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource to update
Returns:the updated resource
Return type:string
ckan.logic.action.update.resource_view_update(context, data_dict)

Update a resource view.

To update a resource_view you must be authorized to update the resource that the resource_view belongs to.

For further parameters see resource_view_create().

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource_view to update
Returns:the updated resource_view
Return type:string
ckan.logic.action.update.resource_view_reorder(context, data_dict)

Reorder resource views.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id of the resource
  • order (list of strings) – the list of id of the resource to update the order of the views
Returns:

the updated order of the view
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.package_update(context, data_dict)

Update a dataset (package).

You must be authorized to edit the dataset and the groups that it belongs to.

It is recommended to call ckan.logic.action.get.package_show(), make the desired changes to the result, and then call package_update() with it.

Plugins may change the parameters of this function depending on the value of the dataset’s type attribute, see the IDatasetForm plugin interface.

For further parameters see package_create().

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the dataset to update
Returns:the updated dataset (if 'return_package_dict' is True in the context, which is the default. Otherwise returns just the dataset id)
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.package_resource_reorder(context, data_dict)

Reorder resources against datasets. If only partial resource ids are supplied then these are assumed to be first and the other resources will stay in their original order

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the package to update
  • order – a list of resource ids in the order needed
ckan.logic.action.update.package_relationship_update(context, data_dict)

Update a relationship between two datasets (packages).

The subject, object and type parameters are required to identify the relationship. Only the comment can be updated.

You must be authorized to edit both the subject and the object datasets.

Parameters:
  • subject (string) – the name or id of the dataset that is the subject of the relationship
  • object – the name or id of the dataset that is the object of the relationship
  • type (string) – the type of the relationship, one of 'depends_on', 'dependency_of', 'derives_from', 'has_derivation', 'links_to', 'linked_from', 'child_of' or 'parent_of'
  • comment (string) – a comment about the relationship (optional)
Returns:

the updated relationship
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.group_update(context, data_dict)

Update a group.

You must be authorized to edit the group.

Plugins may change the parameters of this function depending on the value of the group’s type attribute, see the IGroupForm plugin interface.

For further parameters see group_create().

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the group to update
Returns:the updated group
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.organization_update(context, data_dict)

Update a organization.

You must be authorized to edit the organization.

For further parameters see organization_create().

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the name or id of the organization to update
  • packages – ignored. use package_owner_org_update() to change package ownership
Returns:

the updated organization
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.user_update(context, data_dict)

Update a user account.

Normal users can only update their own user accounts. Sysadmins can update any user account.

For further parameters see user_create().

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the user to update
Returns:the updated user account
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.user_generate_apikey(context, data_dict)

Cycle a user’s API key

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the user whose key needs to be updated
Returns:the updated user
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.task_status_update(context, data_dict)

Update a task status.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id of the task status to update
  • entity_id (string) –
  • entity_type (string) –
  • task_type (string) –
  • key (string) –
  • value – (optional)
  • state – (optional)
  • last_updated – (optional)
  • error – (optional)
Returns:

the updated task status
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.task_status_update_many(context, data_dict)

Update many task statuses at once.

Parameters:data (list of dictionaries) – the task_status dictionaries to update, for the format of task status dictionaries see task_status_update()
Returns:the updated task statuses
Return type:list of dictionaries
ckan.logic.action.update.term_translation_update(context, data_dict)

Create or update a term translation.

You must be a sysadmin to create or update term translations.

Parameters:
  • term (string) – the term to be translated, in the original language, e.g. 'romantic novel'
  • term_translation (string) – the translation of the term, e.g. 'Liebesroman'
  • lang_code (string) – the language code of the translation, e.g. 'de'
Returns:

the newly created or updated term translation
Return type:

dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.term_translation_update_many(context, data_dict)

Create or update many term translations at once.

Parameters:data (list of dictionaries) – the term translation dictionaries to create or update, for the format of term translation dictionaries see term_translation_update()
Returns:a dictionary with key 'success' whose value is a string stating how many term translations were updated
Return type:string
ckan.logic.action.update.vocabulary_update(context, data_dict)

Update a tag vocabulary.

You must be a sysadmin to update vocabularies.

For further parameters see vocabulary_create().

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the vocabulary to update
Returns:the updated vocabulary
Return type:dictionary
ckan.logic.action.update.dashboard_mark_activities_old(context, data_dict)

Mark all the authorized user’s new dashboard activities as old.

This will reset dashboard_new_activities_count() to 0.

ckan.logic.action.update.send_email_notifications(context, data_dict)

Send any pending activity stream notification emails to users.

You must provide a sysadmin’s API key in the Authorization header of the request, or call this action from the command-line via a paster post ... command.

ckan.logic.action.update.package_owner_org_update(context, data_dict)

Update the owning organization of a dataset

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the name or id of the dataset to update
  • organization_id – the name or id of the owning organization
ckan.logic.action.update.bulk_update_private(context, data_dict)

Make a list of datasets private

Parameters:
  • datasets (list of strings) – list of ids of the datasets to update
  • org_id (int) – id of the owning organization
ckan.logic.action.update.bulk_update_public(context, data_dict)

Make a list of datasets public

Parameters:
  • datasets (list of strings) – list of ids of the datasets to update
  • org_id (int) – id of the owning organization
ckan.logic.action.update.bulk_update_delete(context, data_dict)

Make a list of datasets deleted

Parameters:
  • datasets (list of strings) – list of ids of the datasets to update
  • org_id (int) – id of the owning organization
ckan.logic.action.update.config_option_update(context, data_dict)

New in version 2.4.

Allows to modify some CKAN runtime-editable config options

It takes arbitrary key, value pairs and checks the keys against the config options update schema. If some of the provided keys are not present in the schema a ValidationError is raised. The values are then validated against the schema, and if validation is passed, for each key, value config option:

  • It is stored on the system_info database table
  • The Pylons config object is updated.
  • The app_globals (g) object is updated (this only happens for options explicitly defined in the app_globals module.

The following lists a key parameter, but this should be replaced by whichever config options want to be updated, eg:

get_action('config_option_update)({}, {
    'ckan.site_title': 'My Open Data site',
    'ckan.homepage_layout': 2,
})
Parameters:key (string) – a configuration option key (eg ckan.site_title). It must be present on the update_configuration_schema
Returns:a dictionary with the options set
Return type:dictionary

Note

You can see all available runtime-editable configuration options calling the config_option_list() action

Note

Extensions can modify which configuration options are runtime-editable. For details, check Making configuration options runtime-editable.

Warning

You should only add config options that you are comfortable they can be edited during runtime, such as ones you’ve added in your own extension, or have reviewed the use of in core CKAN.

ckan.logic.action.patch

New in version 2.3.

API functions for partial updates of existing data in CKAN

ckan.logic.action.patch.package_patch(context, data_dict)

Patch a dataset (package).

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset

The difference between the update and patch methods is that the patch will perform an update of the provided parameters, while leaving all other parameters unchanged, whereas the update methods deletes all parameters not explicitly provided in the data_dict

You must be authorized to edit the dataset and the groups that it belongs to.

ckan.logic.action.patch.resource_patch(context, data_dict)

Patch a resource

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource

The difference between the update and patch methods is that the patch will perform an update of the provided parameters, while leaving all other parameters unchanged, whereas the update methods deletes all parameters not explicitly provided in the data_dict

ckan.logic.action.patch.group_patch(context, data_dict)

Patch a group

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the group

The difference between the update and patch methods is that the patch will perform an update of the provided parameters, while leaving all other parameters unchanged, whereas the update methods deletes all parameters not explicitly provided in the data_dict

ckan.logic.action.patch.organization_patch(context, data_dict)

Patch an organization

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the organization

The difference between the update and patch methods is that the patch will perform an update of the provided parameters, while leaving all other parameters unchanged, whereas the update methods deletes all parameters not explicitly provided in the data_dict

ckan.logic.action.delete

API functions for deleting data from CKAN.

ckan.logic.action.delete.user_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a user.

Only sysadmins can delete users.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or usernamename of the user to delete
ckan.logic.action.delete.package_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a dataset (package).

This makes the dataset disappear from all web & API views, apart from the trash.

You must be authorized to delete the dataset.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset to delete
ckan.logic.action.delete.dataset_purge(context, data_dict)

Purge a dataset.

Warning

Purging a dataset cannot be undone!

Purging a database completely removes the dataset from the CKAN database, whereas deleting a dataset simply marks the dataset as deleted (it will no longer show up in the front-end, but is still in the db).

You must be authorized to purge the dataset.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the dataset to be purged
ckan.logic.action.delete.resource_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a resource from a dataset.

You must be a sysadmin or the owner of the resource to delete it.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource
ckan.logic.action.delete.resource_view_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a resource_view.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the resource_view
ckan.logic.action.delete.resource_view_clear(context, data_dict)

Delete all resource views, or all of a particular type.

Parameters:view_types (list) – specific types to delete (optional)
ckan.logic.action.delete.package_relationship_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a dataset (package) relationship.

You must be authorised to delete dataset relationships, and to edit both the subject and the object datasets.

Parameters:
  • subject (string) – the id or name of the dataset that is the subject of the relationship
  • object (string) – the id or name of the dataset that is the object of the relationship
  • type (string) – the type of the relationship
ckan.logic.action.delete.member_delete(context, data_dict=None)

Remove an object (e.g. a user, dataset or group) from a group.

You must be authorized to edit a group to remove objects from it.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id of the group
  • object (string) – the id or name of the object to be removed
  • object_type (string) – the type of the object to be removed, e.g. package or user
ckan.logic.action.delete.group_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a group.

You must be authorized to delete the group.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the group
ckan.logic.action.delete.organization_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete an organization.

You must be authorized to delete the organization.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the organization
ckan.logic.action.delete.group_purge(context, data_dict)

Purge a group.

Warning

Purging a group cannot be undone!

Purging a group completely removes the group from the CKAN database, whereas deleting a group simply marks the group as deleted (it will no longer show up in the frontend, but is still in the db).

Datasets in the organization will remain, just not in the purged group.

You must be authorized to purge the group.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the group to be purged
ckan.logic.action.delete.organization_purge(context, data_dict)

Purge an organization.

Warning

Purging an organization cannot be undone!

Purging an organization completely removes the organization from the CKAN database, whereas deleting an organization simply marks the organization as deleted (it will no longer show up in the frontend, but is still in the db).

Datasets owned by the organization will remain, just not in an organization any more.

You must be authorized to purge the organization.

Parameters:id (string) – the name or id of the organization to be purged
ckan.logic.action.delete.task_status_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a task status.

You must be a sysadmin to delete task statuses.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the task status to delete
ckan.logic.action.delete.vocabulary_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a tag vocabulary.

You must be a sysadmin to delete vocabularies.

Parameters:id (string) – the id of the vocabulary
ckan.logic.action.delete.tag_delete(context, data_dict)

Delete a tag.

You must be a sysadmin to delete tags.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the tag
  • vocabulary_id (string) – the id or name of the vocabulary that the tag belongs to (optional, default: None)
ckan.logic.action.delete.unfollow_user(context, data_dict)

Stop following a user.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the user to stop following
ckan.logic.action.delete.unfollow_dataset(context, data_dict)

Stop following a dataset.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the dataset to stop following
ckan.logic.action.delete.group_member_delete(context, data_dict=None)

Remove a user from a group.

You must be authorized to edit the group.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the group
  • username (string) – name or id of the user to be removed
ckan.logic.action.delete.organization_member_delete(context, data_dict=None)

Remove a user from an organization.

You must be authorized to edit the organization.

Parameters:
  • id (string) – the id or name of the organization
  • username (string) – name or id of the user to be removed
ckan.logic.action.delete.unfollow_group(context, data_dict)

Stop following a group.

Parameters:id (string) – the id or name of the group to stop following
ckan.logic.action.delete.job_clear(context, data_dict)

Clear background job queues.

Does not affect jobs that are already being processed.

Parameters:queues (list) – The queues to clear. If not given then ALL queues are cleared.
Returns:The cleared queues.
Return type:list

New in version 2.7.

ckan.logic.action.delete.job_cancel(context, data_dict)

Cancel a queued background job.

Removes the job from the queue and deletes it.

Parameters:id (string) – The ID of the background job.

New in version 2.7.