Specifying HTTP headers

Certain request customizations require setting HTTP headers. Content-Type and Accept headers control input and output format. The Range header controls pagination. The Compression header controls compression.

Content-Type and Accept headers

To specify the content types of the request body and output, use the Content-Type and Accept headers.

Table 1. Content-Type and Accept header values
Header name	Value	Description
`Content-Type`	`application/json`	Indicates that the request body format is JSON.
	`application/xml`	Indicates that the request body format is XML.
	`application/x-www-form-urlencoded`	Indicates that the request body is URL encoded.
`Accept`	`application/json`	Sets output type to JSON.
	`application/json;indent=2`	Sets output type to formatted JSON.
	`application/xml`	Sets output type to XML.

Range

The Range header controls pagination in List API calls.

Table 2. Range header values
Header name	Value	Description
`Range`	`items=x-y`	Returns records with row IDs `x` through `y`. Alternatively, you can specify range in the request URL with the parameter `_range=x-y`.

Compression

To compress the data in a response, set the Accept-Encoding header.

Table 3. Compression header values
Header name	Value	Description
`Accept-Encoding`	`gzip`	Returns compressed results with GNU .ZIP format.
`Accept-Encoding`	`identity`	Returns results with identity encoding (no transformation).

X-HTTP-Method-Override

If you are unable to use an HTTP verb in a request, send a POST request with the verb as the value for the override header. The request behaves as if the call is made with the HTTP verb indicated in the override header.

For example, if you are unable to pass a DELETE request for order number 12345, set the X-HTTP-Method-Override header to DELETE and use the HTTP request:

POST https://host:port/contextRoot/restapi/order/12345

You can also use the X-HTTP-Method-Override header to pass parameters in GET requests that exceed the size limit of a URL. Do a POST to the URL, set the Content-Type header to application/x-www-form-urlencoded, and set the X-HTTP-Method-Override header to GET.

Table 4. X-HTTP-Method-Override header values
Header Name	Value
`X-HTTP-Method-Override`	`GET`
	`PATCH`
	`DELETE`