Powershell encode JSON array in URL for RestMethod

Question

I am using Knack to solve a business process issue, however to ensure it's success I need to run a daily script to sync the data between Knack and our HR system.

Knack uses a REST API and I want to apply a filter to the GET call so that I don't have to populate a local table in order to compare the data.

Knack requires a JSON array like the example below to be encoded in the URL in order to filter the results returned. The example shows how to do this in Javascript but I cannot work out how to do this in Powershell would anyone be able to assist?

 // Request route
var api_url = 'https://api.knack.com/v1/objects/object_1/records';

// Prepare filters
var filters = {
  'match': 'or',
  'rules': [
             {
               'field':'field_1',
               'operator':'is',
               'value':'Dodgit'
             },
             {
               'field':'field_1',
               'operator':'is blank'
             }
           ]
};

// Add filters to route
api_url += '?filters=' + encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify(filters));

AdminOfThings · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-16 13:32:33Z

2

You can do the following:

$api_url = 'https://api.knack.com/v1/objects/object_1/records'
$filters = @'
{
  'match': 'or',
  'rules': [
             {
               'field':'field_1',
               'operator':'is',
               'value':'Dodgit'
             },
             {
               'field':'field_1',
               'operator':'is blank'
             }
           ]
}
'@
$CompressedFilters = $filters | ConvertFrom-Json | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 10 -Compress
$encodedUri = "{0}?filters={1}" -f $api_url,[System.Web.HttpUtility]::UrlEncode($CompressedFilters)

Explanation:

$filters is defined as a here-string. $filters is piped into ConvertFrom-Json and then to ConvertTo-Json in order to compress the JSON data easily. However, that does swap single quotes for double quotes.

UrlEncode() from the System.Web.HttpUtility .NET class encodes special characters in URLs.

-f is the string format operator. This helps to build your URI string. The final URI is stored in $encodedUri.

NOTE: The [System.Web.HttpUtility]::UrlEncode encodes special characters with lowercase hex characters. If your system requires uppercase hex characters, then use [System.Net.WebUtility]::UrlEncode instead.

edited Apr 16, 2020 at 13:32

answered Apr 16, 2020 at 13:23

AdminOfThings

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1 Comment

Andy Finch Over a year ago

Thank you so much this is perfect for what I needed! Worked straight away!

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