REST APIs

Alternatives

To simplify integration and enable interoperability with third-party systems, Snow Owl TS offers two forms of accessing terminology resources via HTTP requests:

  • An API compliant with the requirements listed in the FHIR R5 specification for terminology services: https://hl7.org/fhir/R5/terminology-service.html

  • A native API that is customized to match Snow Owl's internal representation of its supported resources, and so can provide more options

The following pages provide additional information on each method of access:

FHIR APINative API

Official Examples

A comprehensive set of examples is available in our Postman collection: https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/16295366/2s93z3h6cP

Interactive documentation

Port 8080 and the context path /snowowl is assigned in the default installation for serving both APIs. Navigate to http(s)://<host>:8080/snowowl/ to visit the built-in "interactive playground" which lists all available requests by category in the dropdown on the top left:

API categories

Once valid user credentials are entered on the "Authentication" page reachable from the sidebar, it becomes possible to send requests to the server and inspect the returned response body as well as any relevant headers:

Authentication settings

Select a request from the sidebar so that its documentation page appears in the main area. Each request is accompanied by a short description and the list of parameters it accepts. Fields marked with a * symbol are required.

Press the Try button after populating the input fields to execute the request:

Output of a handcrafted concept suggestion request

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