Creating a link

Links describe how various values returned by one operation can be used as input for other operations, providing a known relationship and traversal mechanism between the operations.

Launch the link creation window. For details of the areas in your API definition from where you can create a link, see the following topics:
Note:
  • This task relates to configuring an OpenAPI 3.0 API definition. For details on how to configure an OpenAPI 2.0 API definition, see Editing an OpenAPI 2.0 API definition.
  • OpenAPI 3.0 APIs are supported only with the DataPower® API Gateway, not with the DataPower Gateway (v5 compatible).
  • For details of current OpenAPI 3.0 support limitations, see OpenAPI 3.0 support in IBM® API Connect.

You can complete this task either by using the API Designer UI application, or by using the browser-based API Manager UI.

At any time, you can switch directly to the underlying OpenAPI YAML source by clicking the Source icon OpenAPI Source icon. To return to the design form, click the Form icon Form icon.

  1. Create the link; you can either create a link from scratch, or you can reference a link that is defined in a link component.
    • To create the link from scratch, provide the following information on the Definition tab:
      • Name: If you are creating a link component, this name defines a key that enables this link to be referenced from elsewhere in the API definition; the reference has the following format:
        #/components/links/Name
      • Operation ID: The ID of an existing operation; this field is mutually exclusive of the Operation Ref field. For details on defining operations, see Defining operations for a Path.
      • Operation Ref: A relative or absolute URI reference to an existing operation; this field is mutually exclusive of the Operation ID field. For details on defining operations, see Defining operations for a Path.
      • Description: A description of the link. You can use CommonMark syntax for rich text representation.
    • To reference a link that is defined in a link component, provide the following information on the Reference tab:
      • Name: If you are creating a link component, this name defines a key that enables this link to be referenced from elsewhere in the API definition; the reference has the following format:
        #/components/links/Name
      • Reference from: Select a reference to a link component.
  2. Click Create.
    The link details are displayed for further editing; see Editing a link.