API Integration options

[Stephen Brush]

I see some older posts/responses but thought I would ask again as it's been 6-7 years since the posts I found.

If you were begin a relatively straightforward integration in 2022 would the recommendation still be SWORD or has the REST API effectively supplanted that option?

The tradeoffs I see are the client overheads on package preparation with SWORD vs having to make several calls (and deal with CSRF) on the API side. Are there others?

Thanks,

Steve

[Tim Donohue]

Hi Steve,

Honestly, either approach can work fine.  The biggest advantage though of the (new) DSpace 7 REST API is that it provides the capabilities to perform any action in DSpace (in other words, anything you can do from the DSpace User Interface can also be done via the DSpace REST API).   SWORD, on the other hand, is a protocol for *submission/deposit* actions only (see swordapp.org).  So, SWORD cannot do things like update existing objects/files in the system, move things around between Collections, delete objects, etc etc.

So, if your application is only concerned about depositing new content into DSpace, then either SWORD or the REST API will work fine (it's really a matter of your preference).  But, if you need to do more than that, you are better off using the REST API.

If you have further questions, let us know on this list.

Tim