PATCH for updating content entities

Last updated on
9 June 2023

Follow these steps to expose resources to PATCH requests:

Configuration

This builds upon the GET and POST examples of the previous pages.

See Getting started: REST configuration & REST request fundamentals — Configuration

Sample requests below assume this configuration:

resources:
  entity:node:
    GET:
      supported_formats:
        - hal_json
      supported_auth:
        - basic_auth
        - cookie
    POST:
      supported_formats:
        - hal_json
      supported_auth:
        - basic_auth
        - cookie
    PATCH:
      supported_formats:
        - hal_json
      supported_auth:
        - basic_auth
        - cookie

Test with a PATCH request

Just like it was required in the POST example, this PATCH example will also require the presence of _links because we're using HAL+JSON.

When PATCHing resources, only send the changes. Omit anything that is not changed. This means less data to transmit, but it also means you won't get 403 (Forbidden) responses because you're not allowed to modify certain parts. For example, it never makes sense to send a UUID (since the UUID must by definition remain the same).
On the other hand, certain information must always be sent, despite it not being changed, because otherwise it's impossible for the server to deserialize that information. In the case of content entities that have bundles (e.g. Node entities have different "content types", in this case "content type" == bundle), you must always send the bundle.

In all of the examples below, you should get a 200 response, which includes the serialized entity in the body (since Drupal 8.1.0, i.e. since #2662284: Return complete entity after successful PATCH — before then, you'll get a 204 response, with an empty body)

cURL (command line)

curl --include \
  --request PATCH \
  --user klausi:secret \
  --header 'Content-type: application/hal+json' \
  --header 'X-CSRF-Token: <obtained from http://example.com/rest/session/token>' \
  http://example.com/node/56?_format=hal_json \
  --data-binary '{"_links":{"type":{"href":"http://example.com/rest/type/node/article"}},"title":[{"value":"Example node title UPDATED!"}],"type":[{"target_id":"article"}]}'

Guzzle

<?php
$serialized_entity = json_encode([
  'title' => [['value' => 'Example node title UPDATED']],
  'type' => [['target_id' => 'article']],
  '_links' => ['type' => [
      'href' => 'http://example.com/rest/type/node/article'
  ]],
]);

$response = \Drupal::httpClient()
  ->patch('http://example.com/node/56?_format=hal_json', [
    'auth' => ['klausi', 'secret'],
    'body' => $serialized_entity,
    'headers' => [
      'Content-Type' => 'application/hal+json',
      'X-CSRF-Token' => <obtained from /rest/session/token>
    ],
  ]);
?>

jQuery

function getCsrfToken(callback) {
  jQuery
    .get(Drupal.url('session/token'))
    .done(function (data) {
      var csrfToken = data;
      callback(csrfToken);
    });
}

function patchNode(csrfToken, node) {
  jQuery.ajax({
    url: 'http://example.com/node/56?_format=hal_json',
    method: 'PATCH',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/hal+json',
      'X-CSRF-Token': csrfToken
    },
    data: JSON.stringify(node),
    success: function (node) {
      console.log(node);
    }
  });
}

var newNode = {
  _links: {
    type: {
      href: 'http://example.com/rest/type/node/article'
    }
  },
  type: 'article',
  title: {
    value: 'Example node title UPDATED'
  }
}; 

getCsrfToken(function (csrfToken) {
  patchNode(csrfToken, newNode);
});

PATCH with Taxonomy Term entity reference using HAL+JSON: cURL (command line)

The following is an example of a PATCH request using HAL+JSON to update an article Node with a taxonomy term entity reference for a "tagging" vocabulary.

This example applies only to HAL+JSON, since the concept of _embedded is specific to HAL+JSON, it does not exist in JSON or XML.

Before you can actually PATCH the article node with a tag when using the HAL+JSON format, you first have to GET the tag to retrieve its UUID (because HAL+JSON requires references by UUID). If it's a new term, you must first POST it to create it.

curl --request PATCH -k -i -s --user user:password --header 'Content-type: application/hal+json' -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' --header 'X-CSRF-Token: <obtained from http://example.com/rest/session/token>' 'http://example.com/node/2081?_format=hal_json' --data-binary '
{
  "_links": {
      "self": {
        "href": "http://example.com/node/2081?_format=hal_json"
      },
    "type": {
      "href": "http://example.com/rest/type/node/article"
    },
    "http://example.com/rest/relation/node/article/field_tags": {
       "href": "http://example.com/taxonomy/term/1?_format=hal_json"
    }
  },
  "type": {
      "target_id": "article"
    },
    "nid": [
      {
        "value": "2081"
      }
    ],
  "title": {
      "value": "My Article PATCHED"
    },
  "body": {
      "value": "PATCHED"
  },
    "_embedded": {
      "http://example.com/rest/relation/node/article/field_tags": [
        {
          "_links": {
            "self": {
              "href": "http://example.com/taxonomy/term/1?_format=hal_json"
            },
            "type": {
              "href": "http://example.com/rest/type/taxonomy_term/tags"
            }
          },
          "uuid": [
            {
              "value": "ff61ea71-2540-47fe-a4bb-384b12d4de47"
            }
          ],
          "lang": "en"
        }
      ]
    }
}'

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