REST is an abbreviation of Representational state transfer, which is a style of software architecture designed for distributed systems, typically for the World Wide Web. Kentico CMS has a built-in REST service, which can be used to read, create, update and delete virtually any object or document within the system. These operations are performed by requesting specific URLs. The Kentico CMS REST service can be referred to as RESTful, which means that it supports both directions of data transfer (from and into the system).

 

To enable the service, certain Prerequisites need to be met on the machine where the Kentico CMS instance is installed. Once the prerequisites are met, proceed to the Configuration for REST topic, which describes the required configuration for specific Kentico CMS instances.

 

Once all the configuration is performed, the REST service should be functional. At this point, you can proceed to the Data retrieval methods and Data manipulation methods topics to learn how to work with documents and objects using the REST service. In the URL parameters topic, you can learn about querystring parameters that can be used to filter data retrieved by GET requests. In the Retrieved data examples topic, you can find examples of data retrieved from Kentico CMS via the REST service in various formats.

 

The REST service also supports ODATA browsing by providing service documents with information about data that can be obtained by the service. More information on this can be found in the ODATA service documents topic.

 

The Kentico CMS REST service comes with the Grid for REST service web part, which can be used to display data obtained from the service in a simple grid. On the sample Corporate Site, you can find an example of this web part on the /Examples/API/REST-service page.