2  Mapfluence REST Topics

The following topics cover important concepts that must be understood to work effectively with the Mapfluence REST API:

• Paths and Collections
• Resources in REST
• Geometries in REST
• Select Statements in REST
• Expressions in REST
• Date Filters in REST
• Where Filters in REST
• Color and Size in REST
• Literal Values in REST
• URL Escaping for REST

Using Mapfluence through a RESTful HTTP interface requires familiarity with a number of Mapfluence-specified REST details, including Resource Path and Collections. These topics are covered in the Mapfluence REST guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/rest.

As with REST in general, in the Mapfluence REST API objects are accessed as HTTP resources, meaning that they reside at defined locations on the Mapfluence server and are each exposed via a URL that gives the path to a specific location (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_resource).

The geographic position of an object can be represented as a geometry (point, line, or polygon) of latitude and longitude coordinates. The options for specifying a geometry, including GeoJSON, feature ID, and range, are covered in the Mapfluence REST geometry guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/geometries.

Many Mapfluence requests accept (or require) the select parameter to specify what data to retrieve. For an overview of how to construct select statements see the Mapfluence REST select statements guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/select.

Expressions expand the capability of select statements by letting you retrieve more than just data from an attribute column or feature field (e.g. display the sum of the values of two columns). Arithmetic, geometry, and aggregate expressions are supported. The use of expressions is covered in the Mapfluence REST expressions guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/expressions.

All Mapfluence feature requests allow you to filter results by date and time. The structure of date/time filters depends on the type of geometry table — periodic or event — used in the request. For an explanation of using date filters please see the Mapfluence REST dates guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/dates.

Where statements filter the features returned by Mapfluence feature requests. Mapfluence supports both data filters and geometry filters. For an explanation of the usage of where filters please see the Mapfluence REST where filter guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/where.

To learn how the color and size of map points, lines, and polygons are specified in the Mapfluence REST API please refer to the Mapfluence styles guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/styles.

To learn how literal values (array, Boolean, date, etc.) are specified in the Mapfluence REST API please refer to the Mapfluence REST literal values guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/literals.

Mapfluence requests often contain characters that are reserved for use in URLs. These characters must be properly escaped before being sent to the server. To learn how, please refer to the Mapfluence REST URI escaping guide at http://developer.urbanmapping.com/docs/mapfluence/rest/2.0/guides/url-escaping.

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