Things

Create or patch a thing with a specified ID

PATCH

https://ditto.eclipseprojects.io/api/2/things/{thingId}

Create or patch an existing thing specified by the thingId path parameter.

If the thing did not yet exist, it will be created. For an existing thing, patching a thing will merge the provided request body with the existing thing values. This makes it possible to change only some parts of a thing in single request without providing the full thing structure in the request body.

Patch a thing

With this resource it is possible to add, update or delete parts of an existing thing or to create the thing if it does not yet exist. The request body provided in JSON merge patch (RFC-7396) format will be merged with the existing thing. Notice that the null value in the JSON body will delete the specified JSON key from the thing. For further documentation of JSON merge patch see RFC 7396.

Example

A Thing already exists with the following content:

{
  "definition": "com.acme:coffeebrewer:0.1.0",
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturer": "ACME demo corp.",
    "location": "Berlin, main floor",
    "serialno": "42",
    "model": "Speaking coffee machine"
  },
  "features": {
    "coffee-brewer": {
      "definition": ["com.acme:coffeebrewer:0.1.0"],
      "properties": {
        "brewed-coffees": 0
      }
    },
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "smartMode": true,
          "brewingTemp": 87,
          "tempToHold": 44,
          "timeoutSeconds": 6000
        },
        "status": {
          "waterAmount": 731,
          "temperature": 44
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

To make changes that only affect parts of the existing thing, e.g. add some attribute and delete a specific feature property, the content of the request body could look like this:

{
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturingYear": "2020"
  },
  "features": {
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "smartMode": null,
          "tempToHold": 50,
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The request body will be merged with the existing thing and the result will be the following thing:

{
  "definition": "com.acme:coffeebrewer:0.1.0",
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturer": "ACME demo corp.",
    "manufacturingYear": "2020",
    "location": "Berlin, main floor",
    "serialno": "42",
    "model": "Speaking coffee machine"
  },
  "features": {
    "coffee-brewer": {
      "definition": ["com.acme:coffeebrewer:0.1.0"],
      "properties": {
        "brewed-coffees": 0
      }
    },
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "brewingTemp": 87,
          "tempToHold": 50,
          "timeoutSeconds": 6000
        },
        "status": {
          "waterAmount": 731,
          "temperature": 44
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Permissions for patching an existing Thing

For updating an existing thing, the authorized subject needs WRITE permission on those parts of the thing that are affected by the merge update.

For example, to successfully execute the above example the authorized subject needs to have unrestricted WRITE permissions on all affected paths of the JSON merge patch: attributes/manufacturingYear, features/water-tank/properties/configuration/smartMode, features/water-tank/properties/configuration/tempToHold. The WRITE permission must not be revoked on any level further down the hierarchy. Consequently it is also sufficient for the authorized subject to have unrestricted WRITE permission at root level or unrestricted WRITE permission at /attributes and /features etc.

Create or patch a thing with a specified ID

curl -X PATCH 'https://ditto.eclipseprojects.io/api/2/things/string' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/merge-patch+json' \
  --data-raw '{
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturingYear": "2020"
  },
  "features": {
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "smartMode": null,
          "tempToHold": 50
        }
      }
    }
  }
}'

const body = `{
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturingYear": "2020"
  },
  "features": {
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "smartMode": null,
          "tempToHold": 50
        }
      }
    }
  }
}`;

const response = await fetch('https://ditto.eclipseprojects.io/api/2/things/string', {
  method: 'PATCH',
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_TOKEN',
    'Content-Type': 'application/merge-patch+json',
  },
  body,
});

const data = await response.text();

import requests

body = '''{
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturingYear": "2020"
  },
  "features": {
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "smartMode": null,
          "tempToHold": 50
        }
      }
    }
  }
}'''

response = requests.patch(
    'https://ditto.eclipseprojects.io/api/2/things/string',
    data=body.encode('utf-8'),
    headers={
        'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_TOKEN',
        'Content-Type': 'application/merge-patch+json',
    },
)
print(response.text)

Request Body

{
  "attributes": {
    "manufacturingYear": "2020"
  },
  "features": {
    "water-tank": {
      "properties": {
        "configuration": {
          "smartMode": null,
          "tempToHold": 50
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "thingId": "string",
  "policyId": "string",
  "definition": "string",
  "attributes": {},
  "features": {},
  "_revision": "string",
  "_created": "string",
  "_modified": "string",
  "_metadata": {}
}

{
  "status": 0,
  "error": "string",
  "message": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "href": "string"
}

{
  "status": 0,
  "error": "string",
  "message": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "href": "string"
}

{
  "status": 0,
  "error": "string",
  "message": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "href": "string"
}

{
  "status": 0,
  "error": "string",
  "message": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "href": "string"
}

{
  "status": 0,
  "error": "string",
  "message": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "href": "string"
}

{
  "status": 0,
  "error": "string",
  "message": "string",
  "description": "string",
  "href": "string"
}

{
  "acknowledgementLabel1": {
    "status": 200,
    "payload": "OK"
  },
  "acknnowledgementLabelN": {
    "status": 403,
    "payload": "Forbidden"
  }
}

Body

application/merge-patch+json

JSON representation of the thing to be patched.

thingIdstringrequired

Unique identifier representing the thing

policyIdstringrequired

The ID of the policy which controls the access to this thing. policies are managed by resource /policies/{policyId}

definitionDefinition

A single fully qualified identifier of a definition in the form '::' or a valid HTTP(s) URL

attributesAttributes

An arbitrary JSON object describing the attributes of a thing.

featuresFeatures

List of features where the key represents the featureId of each feature. The featureId key must be unique in the list.

Show child attributes

[key: string]Feature

Show child attributes

definitionArray<string>

The definitions of a feature.

propertiesFeatureProperties

An arbitrary JSON object describing the properties of a feature.

desiredPropertiesFeatureDesiredProperties

An arbitrary JSON object describing the desired properties of a feature.

Parameters

thingIdstringrequiredpath

The ID of a thing needs to follow the namespaced entity ID notation (see Ditto documentation on namespaced entity IDs).

if-equalstringupdateskipskip-minimizing-mergeheader

The if-equal header can take the values 'update' (which is the default if omitted), 'skip' or 'skip-minimizing-merge'. If 'update' is defined, the entity will always be updated, even if it is equal before the update. If 'skip' is defined, the entity not be updated if it is equal before the update. In this case a 'Precondition Failed' 412 status is returned. If 'skip-minimizing-merge' is defined, the entity will not be updated if it is equal before the update. In this case a 'Precondition Failed' 412 status is returned. Additionally, merge/patch commands will be minimized to only the fields which actually changed, compared to the current state of the entity.

requested-acksstringquery

Contains the "requested acknowledgements" for this modifying request as comma separated list. The HTTP call will block until all requested acknowledgements were aggregated or will time out based on the specified timeout parameter.

The default (if omitted) requested acks is requested-acks=twin-persisted which will block the HTTP call until the change was persited to the twin.

timeoutstringquery

Defines how long the backend should wait for completion of the request, e.g. applied when waiting for requested acknowledgements via the requested-acks param. Can be specified without unit (then seconds are assumed) or together with s, ms or m unit. Example: 42s, 1m.

The default (if omitted) and maximum timeout is 60s. A value of 0 applies fire and forget semantics for the command resulting in setting response-required=false.

response-requiredbooleanquery

Defines whether a response is required to the API call or not - if set to false the response will directly sent back with a status code of 202 (Accepted).

The default (if ommited) response is true.

conditionstringquery

Defines that the request should only be processed if the given condition is met. The condition can be specified using RQL syntax.

Examples

E.g. if the temperature is not 23.9 update it to 23.9:

PUT /api/2/things/{thingId}/features/temperature/properties/value?condition=ne(features/temperature/properties/value,23.9)

body: 23.9

Further example conditions:

?condition=eq(features/temperature/properties/unit,"Celsius")
?condition=ge(features/temperature/properties/lastModified,"2021-08-22T19:45:00Z")
?condition=gt(_modified,"2021-08-05T12:17:00Z")
?condition=exists(features/temperature/properties/value)
?condition=empty(features/temperature/properties/value)
?condition=and(gt(features/temperature/properties/value,18.5),lt(features/temperature/properties/value,25.2))
?condition=or(gt(features/temperature/properties/value,18.5),not(exists(features/temperature/properties/value))

channelstringtwinlivequery

Defines to which channel to route the command: twin (digital twin) or live (the device).

If setting the channel parameter is omitted, the twin channel is set by default and the command is routed to the persisted representation of a thing in Eclipse Ditto.
When using the live channel, the command/message is sent towards the device.

Response

201CreatedThing

The thing was successfully created.

Response headers

Response fields application/json

thingIdstringrequired

Unique identifier representing the thing

policyIdstringrequired

The ID of the policy which controls the access to this thing. policies are managed by resource /policies/{policyId}

definitionDefinition

A single fully qualified identifier of a definition in the form '::' or a valid HTTP(s) URL

attributesAttributes

An arbitrary JSON object describing the attributes of a thing.

featuresFeatures

List of features where the key represents the featureId of each feature. The featureId key must be unique in the list.

Show child attributes

[key: string]Feature

Show child attributes

definitionArray<string>

The definitions of a feature.

propertiesFeatureProperties

An arbitrary JSON object describing the properties of a feature.

desiredPropertiesFeatureDesiredProperties

An arbitrary JSON object describing the desired properties of a feature.

_revisionstring

(read-only) The revision is a counter which is incremented on each modification of a Thing. This field is not returned by default but must be selected explicitly.

_createdstring

(read-only) The created timestamp of the Thing in ISO-8601 UTC format. The timestamp is set on creation of a Thing. This field is not returned by default but must be selected explicitly.

_modifiedstring

(read-only) The modified timestamp of the Thing in ISO-8601 UTC format. The timestamp is set on each modification of a Thing. This field is not returned by default but must be selected explicitly.

_metadataobject

(read-only) The Metadata of the Thing. This field is not returned by default but must be selected explicitly.

204No Content

The thing was successfully patched.

Response headers

400Bad RequestAdvancedError

The request could not be completed. Possible reasons:

the JSON body of the thing to be patched is invalid
the JSON body of the thing to be patched contains a thingId which does not match the ID in the path

Response fields application/json

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the error

errorstringrequired

The error code of the occurred exception

messagestringrequired

The message of the error - what went wrong

descriptionstring

A description how to fix the error or more details

hrefstring

A link to further information about the error and how to fix it

401UnauthorizedAdvancedError

The request could not be completed due to missing authentication.

Response fields application/json

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the error

errorstringrequired

The error code of the occurred exception

messagestringrequired

The message of the error - what went wrong

descriptionstring

A description how to fix the error or more details

hrefstring

A link to further information about the error and how to fix it

403ForbiddenAdvancedError

The request could not be completed. Possible reasons:

the caller would not have access to the thing after creating it with the given policy
the caller has insufficient permissions. For modifying an existing thing, an unrestricted WRITE permission on the thing's root resource is required.

Response fields application/json

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the error

errorstringrequired

The error code of the occurred exception

messagestringrequired

The message of the error - what went wrong

descriptionstring

A description how to fix the error or more details

hrefstring

A link to further information about the error and how to fix it

404Not FoundAdvancedError

The request could not be completed. Possible reasons:

the referenced thing does not exist.
the caller has insufficient permissions to read the referenced thing.
the policy that should be copied does not exist.

Response fields application/json

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the error

errorstringrequired

The error code of the occurred exception

messagestringrequired

The message of the error - what went wrong

descriptionstring

A description how to fix the error or more details

hrefstring

A link to further information about the error and how to fix it

412Precondition FailedAdvancedError

A precondition for reading or writing the (sub-)resource failed. This will happen for write requests, if you specified an If-Match or If-None-Match header, which fails the precondition check against the current ETag of the (sub-)resource. For read requests, this error may only happen for a failing If-Match header. In case of a failing If-None-Match header for a read request, status 304 will be returned instead.

Response headers

Response fields application/json

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the error

errorstringrequired

The error code of the occurred exception

messagestringrequired

The message of the error - what went wrong

descriptionstring

A description how to fix the error or more details

hrefstring

A link to further information about the error and how to fix it

413Payload Too LargeAdvancedError

The created or modified entity is larger than the accepted limit of 100 kB.

Response fields application/json

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the error

errorstringrequired

The error code of the occurred exception

messagestringrequired

The message of the error - what went wrong

descriptionstring

A description how to fix the error or more details

hrefstring

A link to further information about the error and how to fix it

424any

One or more acknowledgement requests in the parameter requested-acks were not fulfilled.

Response fields application/json

acknowledgementLabel1any

Show child attributes

statusintegerrequired

The HTTP status of the acknowledgement

payloadobject | string | number | array | boolean

The payload of the acknowledgement

Show child attributes

One of

object

string

number

array

boolean

Example

{
  "status": 200,
  "payload": "OK"
}

Example

{
  "acknowledgementLabel1": {
    "status": 200,
    "payload": "OK"
  },
  "acknnowledgementLabelN": {
    "status": 403,
    "payload": "Forbidden"
  }
}

Authorization

OpenIDConnectopenIdConnect

OpenID Connect Discovery URL. The placeholder is replaced by Swagger UI when configured.

NginxBasichttp (basic)

Eclipse Ditto sandbox demo user (demo1 ... demo9) + password (demo)

Bearerhttp (bearer)

A JSON Web Token issued by a supported OAuth 2.0 Identity Provider.

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