How can I use Powershell to access a restful webservice?

Question

I need to integrate an existing powershell script to update it's status via a restful web service that returns json. I'm a bit new to powershell but I was able to find the System.Net.WebRequest object do something like the following.

$a = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create("http://intranet/service/object/")
$a.Method = "GET"
$a.GetResponse()

which returns a json array of objects

[ {id:1}, {id:2}] // etc

I'm not sure where to go from here and how to parse this into a native datatype. I'd like to be able to post and delete as well.

Any pointers? And are there any json/rest libraries or command-lets?

duncan-cragg.org/blog/post/getting-data-rest-dialogues

reconbot
– reconbot

2011-01-07 19:45:07 +00:00
Commented Jan 7, 2011 at 19:45 — reconbot
– reconbot, Commented Jan 7, 2011 at 19:45

Dave · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-06 23:43:36Z

28

What you want is PowerShell 3 and its Invoke-RestMethod, ConvertTo-Json, and ConvertFrom-Json cmdlets. Your code will end up looking like:

$stuff = invoke-RestMethod -Uri $url -Method Get;

and there shouldn't even be a need to invoke ConvertFrom-Json on the resulting $stuff => it's already in a usable non-string format.

As for POSTs|PUTs, simply use PowerShell hashes and arrays to structure your data and then call ConvertTo-Json on it before passing it to invoke-RestMethod or invoke-WebRequest:

invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -ContentType application/json -Method Post -Body $objectConvertedToJson

See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/Library/hh849971.aspx for details.

answered Nov 6, 2012 at 23:43

Dave

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reconbot Over a year ago

You are completely correct however powershell 3 is still pretty new and not deployed where I work.

Victor Haydin · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-04 20:40:05Z

3

You could use DataContractJsonSerializer, which is a part of standard .Net library.

answered Jan 4, 2011 at 20:40

Victor Haydin

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x0n · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-04 20:41:37Z

2

@Jaykul wrote a nice set of RESTful functions that are part of his Mindtouch dreamwiki script over here: http://poshcode.org/691

answered Jan 4, 2011 at 20:41

x0n

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