URL and data format notes

  • The FileMaker Data API maximum URI length may be influenced by differences in operating systems, web servers, and web browsers. For optimal cross-platform use, limit the URI length to 2000 characters.

  • There may be URLs or parts of URLs where text case doesn't matter, but in general, treat URLs as if they are case sensitive. For example, if you use a lowercase database name to log in to a database session, continue to use a lowercase database name for all subsequent URLs that pass the same session token. Otherwise, you may receive an invalid token error message.

  • Strings in URLs must use URL encoding, also known as percent encoding, which is normal for HTTP requests. For example, to specify a layout name that includes a slash character, you must specify the slash character as the following encoded value: "%2F"

  • String data values specified in parameters in the body of the request must use UTF-8 encoding.

  • In general, the FileMaker Data API treats numeric data values as if they were in double-precision floating-point format (binary64). Use the corresponding data format in the programming language that you use. (Numeric data values should not be enclosed in quotation marks and should not use URL encoding.)

  • Data values for number, date, time, and timestamp fields follow the same limits as specified by FileMaker Pro. See About choosing a field type in FileMaker Pro Help.

  • The fields and portals that you specify must be on the layout that you specify.

  • To specify related fields, use the portalData syntax.

    Note  The tablename::related-field(repetition-number).record-id syntax from the previous release is still supported, but the portalData syntax is preferred.

  • In the response body, the FileMaker Data API returns only the field name for fields from the current table and returns the fully qualified name for fields from related tables. For portal fields, the fully qualified name uses the portal's name if the portal was named in the Inspector; otherwise, the fully qualified name uses the table occurrence name.

  • For container field data, the FileMaker Data API returns a URL with the path reference to the container data object.