All Questions
Tagged with api-help or documentation
147 questions
109
votes
3
answers
24k
views
API Documentation and Help
Method List
All API methods can be found at https://api.stackexchange.com/docs.
Global Method Parameters
All methods accept the following parameters:
type=jsontext: responds with mime-type text/json.
...
32
votes
1
answer
11k
views
Looking for a beginner's tutorial to using the API
I see the Stack Exchange API but I'm unable to understand it. I don't think there is any fundamental tutorial showing how to use Stack Overflow fully in the API documentation.
I want some fundamental ...
- 423
20
votes
3
answers
209
views
Documentation or API method for `option_id` information, for the `/flags/options` API calls?
The Stack Exchange API has a couple of calls that return a list of flag_option objects.
These objects contain a couple of properties that can be used to identify the flag you need.
For example, when ...
- 331
18
votes
1
answer
300
views
Accessing Authenticated User's Close/Delete History
I'm working on the PHP chatroom's cv-pls backlog UI. Many users and myself would like the ability to track which questions we have already handled though close/delete votes. To be able to do that I ...
- 507
12
votes
1
answer
415
views
How the /sites method is meant to be used
The /sites method is used to enumerate all sites in the network. If your [app] is meant to run against more than a single site (and many are) this method is how you should be discovering new sites in ...
10
votes
0
answers
315
views
Tell us that POST is required to write
While troubleshooting /posts/{id}/comments/add in order to answer Why am I getting a 404 when trying to post a comment?, it was noticed that the API path in question only responded to POST requests. ...
9
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How to see which users upvoted a question?
I assume this information is tracked, since StackOverflow shows me the questions I have upvoted (when going to their question page, I can undo the upvote). I couldn't find any api call that gives this ...
- 1,079
9
votes
1
answer
165
views
Typos in API documentation
From the /posts documentation:
Most applications should use the question or answer specific methods, but /posts is available for those rare cases where any activity is of intereset.
intereset => ...
- 6,965
8
votes
0
answers
207
views
Incomplete information in API documentation
I am struggling a little bit with the Stack Exchange API since there seems to be no formal specification for the individual endpoints of the API.
Example:
Endpoint: https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/...
- 533
7
votes
1
answer
706
views
Application Key and AccessToken are not working for Stack Exchange API? [duplicate]
I have followed the documentation and used explicit OAuth 2.0 flow for access_token generation.
And I have gone through all 4 steps defined under explicit OAuth 2.0 flow with scope=no_expiry. Then I ...
- 325
7
votes
1
answer
160
views
What happened to the JSON documentation for the API?
Back in version 1.1 of the API, we used to be able to do:
http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.1/questions?help
...which would return information about the method in JSON format. However, attempting to do ...
- 23.2k
6
votes
1
answer
383
views
Where is the usage documentation?
I know this is probably a dumb question, but there's a bunch of documentation and I don't know what to do with this stuff. How do you use the API?
- 163
6
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Please "release" and/or document API version 2.3
I was playing around a bit with Fiddler to capture traffic from the Stack Exchange iOS app. To my surprise, it uses version 2.3 of the Stack Exchange API:
I noticed here that it has some extra ...
- 6,965
6
votes
0
answers
84
views
Docs say the API returns a user's age, but it doesn't (anymore)
The doc page says that the user object returns an age property (for those users that specified an age).
But the API no longer does. (Plus spot checks of users that had age in ...
- 13k
6
votes
0
answers
69
views
API docs for "stack overflow" still feature v1.0 docs
I guess I'd call this a doc bug.
Currently the page http://api.stackoverflow.com redirects to http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/usage, which says at the top "Don't use 1.0, use 2.1". This URL ...
- 161
5
votes
1
answer
87
views
Please make the site search on the API alphabetical
When I search, I want the sites to be alphabetical:
Please can they be?
- 591
5
votes
1
answer
97
views
Which reputation events are private?
I've been reading the API documentation on retrieving a user's reputation history (docs/types/reputation-history)
and Stack Overflow's description of how reputation is calculated.
But, I can't find ...
- 153
5
votes
1
answer
154
views
API docs titled "v2.0"; should be "v2.1"
The documentation is titled "StackExchange API v2.0"... this should be updated to "v2.1" as it's not readily obvious that version 2.1 has been published otherwise.
https://api.stackexchange.com/docs
- 373
5
votes
1
answer
773
views
Is it possible to authenticate a user through Stack Overflow API?
Is it possible to use the Stack Overflow API to authenticate a given user identity such as with Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID?
If it's possible: Can you tell me the method (s) that make this happen?
- 51
5
votes
1
answer
220
views
Few typos in the documentation pages
https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/vectors
When passing a vector, sepeate each id with a semicolon. For example, /users/1;2;3;4;5?site=somesite would fetch users with ids 1 through 5 on somesite.
...
- 566
5
votes
1
answer
103
views
API documentation pages match some site names incorrectly
The bug is not in the API itself, but in the pages documenting its methods. To reproduce, follow the link http://api.stackexchange.com/docs/info#filter=default&site=math and observe that the page ...
5
votes
1
answer
350
views
Is there an offline copy of the API documentation?
I'm trying to find a way to get all the information in the API in one printable PDF,
complete with the examples given in the documentation.
Is there anyway I can do this?
- 833
5
votes
1
answer
211
views
Do the terms "key" and "access_token" refer to the same thing?
I'm trying to get my head around all the limits and throttles but some terminology is confusing me:
If an application does not have an access_token, then the application shares an IP based quota ...
- 872
5
votes
2
answers
188
views
API Help's CSS is missing
The API Help page's CSS file, located at http://sstatic.net/so/all.css, is current returning 404 for me:
<div id="header"><h1>Server Error</h1></div>
<div id="content">
...
- 819
5
votes
1
answer
151
views
Typos on api.stackexchange.com/docs/js-lib
Under the Authentication section on https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/js-lib, there are a few typos (emphasis mine):
scope (optional) – an array of scopes to request during authentication, valid ...
- 4,405
5
votes
1
answer
52
views
Typo in API filter documentation
When using unsafe filters, the API returns the highest fidelity data is can reasonably access for the given request.
should be
When using unsafe filters, the API returns the highest fidelity data it ...
- 872
5
votes
1
answer
120
views
Enumerated types documentation in 1.1 API
I'm starting to implement requesting question and user activity in my framework, but the new 1.1 API documentation doesn't seem to indicate what the possible return values are for the fields any more.
...
- 5,264
5
votes
1
answer
161
views
Two minor typos in the API help
In http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/help
/users/{id}/answers Gets answer summary informatino for the user with 'id'.
and in the Returns section of http://api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/help/method?method=...
- 185
5
votes
0
answers
136
views
"What is meta" should be rephrased
Stackapps.com/help/whats-meta tells that there is "Meta Stack Apps". However there isn't.
Stack Apps is its own meta and meta is used to ask meta questions here.
- 426
4
votes
2
answers
255
views
How to get a post title for a given post ID, even if that post ID is an answer and not a question?
I'm trying to beautify the reputation audit. If I want to show the post title for a reputation change event, however, I have a problem -- I don't know if the post ID is relative to a question or an ...
- 945
4
votes
1
answer
214
views
“Try It” URL has wrong URI
On API doc pages, the “link” link at the top-right of the “Try It” sections presents a URL with the wrong domain name:
For example, on docs/similar, the URL displayed will be:
https://api....
- 165
4
votes
1
answer
69
views
Typo in the docs for /me
The doc says:
Returns the user associated with the passed auth_token.
This method returns a user.
It should say "access_token" instead of "auth_token".
- 358
4
votes
1
answer
449
views
My filter is not returning any results. How to create a minimal filter?
I'm having trouble getting the SO API Filters to cooperate. I've gone over the documentation as well as similar questions like this and this.
I'll use this call as an example since it successfully ...
- 256
4
votes
1
answer
308
views
How do I parse the dates from the API?
I see that JSON returned by the API contains dates in the following format:
"creation_date":1364546475
^^^^^^^^^^
What's the meaning of it? How can I parse it to get the date in the ...
- 343
4
votes
1
answer
138
views
Is there an RSS feed or question that has API changes?
Is there someplace that we can find notifications of API changes? I noticed today that a new property has been added to user along with a couple new method (and maybe other changes).
Is there an ...
- 253
4
votes
1
answer
103
views
"Try it" facility suffers a double-encoding bug
As you can clearly see from the above, the ampersand in the site name in the "Try It" section of the API method documentation has been double-encoded. This affects any site with an ampersand in the ...
4
votes
2
answers
119
views
Documentation sorted by return type
Right now the documentation is pretty terribly organized. For example, consider the things under the "Users" heading:
/users => returns Users
/users/{ids} => returns Users
/users/{ids}/answers => ...
- 5,264
4
votes
2
answers
136
views
Possible bug in the help page?
There are some weird dot things in this help page:
api.stackoverflow.com/0.8/help/method?method=users/{id}/badges
{Dead link to missing image: http://files.quickmediasolutions.com/stackbug.png}
...
- 23.2k
4
votes
1
answer
132
views
Confirmation on sort, order and min/max
I'd like confirmation, if possible, that the following chart of sort types is correct:
sort |orderable|min/max |min/max type
------------------------------------------
activity | yes | ...
- 369
4
votes
2
answers
124
views
Document fields that may be not be included in responses
I'd like to see documentation on what fields may not be included in responses or, alternatively, which fields are guaranteed to be included. Currently it's a little confusing because some fields may ...
- 369
4
votes
1
answer
58
views
Stylistic error on the JavaScript SDK documentation page
There is a small stylistic error on the JavaScript SDK documentation page.
Your application must have the client side OAuth flow enabled, and must not have disabled the desktop application redirect ...
- 147
4
votes
1
answer
151
views
AND searching for tags?
I am using the search api to search for questions that are tagged with "tags" and not with "tags". However I have noticed that searching for tags is an OR search.
The questions search for tags is an ...
- 465
4
votes
0
answers
81
views
Authorization dialog shows wrong API version
If you go on this doc page and click on Get Token, you'll see this:
Minor bug, but still, I thought it would be nice to fix this inconsistency :)
- 265
4
votes
0
answers
74
views
'answer' type has "unchanged in unsafe filters" listed for the wrong field
http://api.stackexchange.com/docs/types/answer says the can_flag field is unchanged in unsafe filters. It's probably meant for the field above it: body_markdown.
- 273
4
votes
0
answers
56
views
Link to applied_count leads to a 404
To Reproduce
Run an API query on tag-synonyms, you will get a result that includes something like this:
Issue(s)
Click on the applied_count link and you get redirected to this page which is a 404.
It ...
- 141
4
votes
0
answers
145
views
Parameter `tagged` in `search/advanced` seems to use `AND` instead of `OR`
It seems that search/advanced has the same problem as in "The tagged parameter does not work with multiple tags" question.
When I select c#; .net I only get results tagged both c# and .net:
http://...
- 175
3
votes
1
answer
4k
views
HTTP 400 "Bad Request" while using "access_token" in request Url
I registered an app, obtained a key and I have implemented the implicit OAuth 2.0 flow in a Windows 8 desktop app (as per the documentation available here). After receiving and storing the access ...
- 173
3
votes
1
answer
57
views
Clickable link in "Try It" section of some doc pages
In the "Try It" section of some doc pages, the link is not present.
It is present in the below image
Its not present in the below image
- 834
3
votes
1
answer
347
views
API Time zone difference problem
I am writing a .NET application with the Stack Exchange API (using the Stacky library) and I am using it to ask the server for some questions that occured in the last hour. However, I and the server ...
- 231
3
votes
1
answer
109
views
How many ids is 'too many'?
This answer mentions limit on amount of ids included in queries like /users/{id}/mentioned, but I can't find actual amount mentioned anywhere.
Now, I could run binary search and find out, but I ...
- 1,271