.Stat SDMX RESTful Web Service Cheat Sheet

Table of Content

• Introduction
• Structural metadata queries
• Examples of structural metadata queries
• Data queries
• Examples of data queries
• Supported formats
• Referential metadata queries

Introduction

This cheat sheet is a quick reference description of the most frequently used syntax and parameters for the .Stat SDMX RESTful API. It is derived from the full SDMX cheat sheet of the SDMX RESTful API 1.5 standard with examples added for the .Stat context and the unsupported elements removed.
You can also download this document as a .docx file.

Colour legend:

Structural metadata queries

Each .Stat data space has a different web service entry point, which should replace http[s]://.Stat space WS in the above syntax.

Other features defined in the SDMX REST API 1.5 standard may not necessarily be implemented and available in the .Stat SDMX (NSI) web service.

Examples of structural metadata queries

For demonstration purposes, these examples use the SIS-CC demo SDMX web service instance at https://nsi-demo-stable.siscc.org.

Note that with the detail=referencepartial query parameter, the server automatically applies the allowed content constraint on the codelists (and other ItemSchemes) and returns only partial (and thus shorter) codelists.
Using the query for a dataflow with the references=all, references=constraint, or references=actualconstraint parameter (with or without the detail=referencepartial parameter) also returns a content constraint of type actual within the response if data was already uploaded or if the underlying dataflow was ‘initialised’. If such a content constraint is not returned by a .Stat Suite SDMX web service, then data was not yet uploaded or the underlying dataflow has not yet been ‘initialised’.

Data queries

Each .Stat space has a different web service entry point which should replace http[s]://ws-entry-point in the above syntax.

Other features defined in the SDMX REST API 1.5 standard may not necessarily be implemented and available in the .Stat SDMX (NSI) web service.

Note that in the .Stat Suite, the SDMX NSI web service is configured to apply Allowed ContentConstraints for both dimension values as well as attribute values to all data extractions:

config/Properties.json file:

{
  "applyContentConstraintsOnDataQueries": "true"
}

Examples of data queries

For demonstration purposes, these examples use the SIS-CC demo SDMX web service instance at https://nsi-demo-stable.siscc.org.

Supported formats

The content in the “Parameter” column in the table below is to be used as value for the HTTP Accept header (see the Useful HTTP headers above)

Alternatively, the NSI SDMX web service allows using pre-configured options for the non-standard URL parameter format, e.g.:

• format=structure is equivalent to application/vnd.sdmx.structure+xml
• format=structurespecificdata is equivalent to application/vnd.sdmx.structurespecificdata+xml
• format=genericdata is equivalent to application/vnd.sdmx.genericdata+xml
• format=jsondata is equivalent to application/vnd.sdmx.data+json
• format="csv is equivalent to application/vnd.sdmx.data+csv
• format=csvfile is equivalent to application/vnd.sdmx.data+csv;file=true

This list can be customised per .Stat Suite data space. See here about the related configuration information.

For SDMX-CSV files, using the NSI SDMX web service configuration option useCultureSpecificColumnAndDecimalSeparators, the content can be localised. If this setting is set to true, then the information about the culture-specific separators (column, decimal) already available in the .NET cultureInfo class are applied in the CSV data message (all versions):

These separators are applied as per the Accept-Language HTTP header. Otherwise there is a fall back to the NSI defaultCultureInfo setting: If the config option is set to false then comma (,) is used as column separator and dot (.) is used as decimal separator. In case that a configuration leads to a conflict (same character for both), then the NSI reverts to the 2 default characters. Note that the SDMX-CSV standard allows using any column separator character, and a standard decimal separator character. The transfer service automatically identifies the characters used in imported files.

Referential metadata queries

Please see here.