REST API
From LimeSurvey Manual
- TODO - Under development
- Available from version x (LS 5.5.0?)
- Technical specification. UML.
Introduction
LimeSurvey REST API (v1) is available from LS 5.5.0 and offers various API endpoints. The initial v1 REST API provides a subset of the functionality provided by the existing Remote Control API except via a REST interface rather than an RPC interface.
Setup
Configure
In order to use REST API you must first enable the service, and then adjust the settings to suit your needs. To enable login to the LimeSurvey administration, go to Global settings, choose the tab 'Interfaces' and select 'Publish API on /rest'.
Security
The REST API uses the same security measures as the normal administration login. That means that the permission set of the used username and password is the same as if you would login in the administration with that user/password. Also the REST API is protected against brute-force password cracking - like the normal administration login.
Usage
Documentation
The available API endpoints are fully documented using swagger https://api.limesurvey.org/swagger.
API Location
The REST API URL is http://www.yourdomain.com/rest/v1 .
Authorisation
Currently the REST API supports server side session authorisation. You use your standard admin username and password to gain API authorisation.
Login
To login to the REST API, perform a POST request to /rest/v1/session with 'username' and 'password' post data. The API will returns a 200 response with a session id string body.
Bearer Authentication
The session id string returned in the JSON response of /rest/v1/session can be used as authorisation in requests to other endpoints using bearer authentication (also called token authentication).
Set HTTP header 'Authorization' with the value 'Bearer my-session-id-string-returned-from-server' in each request to endpoints that require authorisation.
Logout
To logout of the REST API perform an authorised DELETE request to the /rest/v1/session.
Endpoints
See the Swagger Documentation for full details.
- /rest/v1/
- session
- siteSettings
- siteSettings/<setting-name>
- survey
- survey/<id>
- questionGroup/<surveyId>
- questionGroup
- questionGroup/<groupId>
- questionGroupProperties/<groupId>
- questioGroupProperties/<groupId>
Examples
PHP Example
This example uses Guzzle as a PHP REST client but you can use any REST client.
composer require guzzlehttp/guzzle:^7.0
or by inclusion of the following lines in your composer.json file:
{
"require": {
"guzzlehttp/guzzle": "^7.0"
}
}
This is an example how to connect to limesurvey REST API:
<?php
require './vendor/autoload.php';
use GuzzleHttp\Client;
$baseUrl = 'https://www.mysurveysite.com/index.php/';
$api = 'rest/v1/';
$apiUrl = $baseUrl . $api;
$timeout = 60;
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Login
$loginClient = new Client([
'base_uri' => $apiUrl,
'timeout' => $timeout
]);
$loginResult = $loginClient->request('POST', 'session', [
'form_params' => [
'username' => 'admin',
'password' => 'password'
]
]);
$sessionId = null;
if ($loginResult->getStatusCode() == 200) {
$sessionId = json_decode(
(string) $loginResult->getBody(),
true
);
} else {
throw new Exception('Login failed: ' . $result->getStatusCode());
}
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Use the API with session id that we got from login
$client = new Client([
'base_uri' => $apiUrl,
'timeout' => $timeout,
'headers' => ['Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $sessionId]
]);
$result = $client->request('GET', 'siteSettings/sitename');
$siteName = null;
if ($result->getStatusCode() == 200) {
$siteName = json_decode(
(string) $result->getBody(),
true
);
} else {
throw new Exception('Failed getting site name: ' . $result->getStatusCode());
}
echo 'Site name: ' . $siteName;
// Logout
$result = $client->request('DELETE', 'session');