How do I create and delete a forum via POST to taxonomy_term?

Question

I'd like to be able to programmatically create and delete Forums on a Drupal 7 install, via the Services module. I want to send in HTTP requests and have those things happen.

I know how to create a node (page, article, or forum topic). I know how to delete a node.

How can I create a forum? I think Forums is a taxonomy_vocabulary. I think creating and removing forums is equivalent to adding and removing terms to the vocabulary. But I would like to see an example.

Any help?

Answer 1

Part one: How to delete a forum.

curl -i -X DELETE \
  -H Cookie:SESSe6abeefcafe=ovQpO6ahoQYUUREX23bre_2Q1onya55i9fbmzq7TWEE \
  -H X-CSRF-Token:v6j7r9Rbase62tokenHere-m9YYZA \
  -H Accept:application/json \
  http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_term/7

Some notes:

• to construct the URL, you need to use the Term ID of the particular forum you would like to delete
• You need to use the Cookie obtained from the prior call to /user/login
• You need to use the CSRF token obtained from that same call

---

Where does the term ID come from?

The term id in my case, is something I retrieved from a combination of two other calls: one to retrieve the taxonomy id for the forums, then another to retrieve the terms under that taxonomy. Like this:

curl -i -X GET \
  -H Cookie:SESSe6abeefcafe=ovQpO6ahoQYUUREX23bre_2Q1onya55i9fbmzq7TWEE \
 'http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_vocabulary?parameters\[machine_name\]=forums' 

The response is like this:

[{
  "vid": "1",
  "name": "Forums",
  "machine_name": "forums",
  "description": "Forum navigation vocabulary",
  "hierarchy": "0",
  "module": "forum",
  "weight": "-10",
  "uri": "http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_vocabulary/1"
}]

And then, with the taxonomy ID returned there, I can retrieve the terms, which correspond to actual forums, like this:

curl -i -X GET \
 -H Cookie:SESSe6abeefcafe=ovQpO6ahoQYUUREX23bre_2Q1onya55i9fbmzq7TWEE \
 -H Accept:application/json \
 'http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_term?parameters\[vid\]=1' 

The response is an array of JSON items, each of which has a term id. You can then choose one of those term id's to delete, as above.

Part two: How to create a forum.

To create a forum, do the converse; add a new term in the same "forums" vocabulary. like this.

curl -i -X POST \
  -H Cookie:SESSe6abeefcafe=ovQpO6ahoQYUUREX23bre_2Q1onya55i9fbmzq7TWEE \
  -H X-CSRF-Token:v6j7r9Rbase62tokenHere-m9YYZA \
  -H Accept:application/json \
  -H content-type:application/json \
  http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_term \
  -d '{
    "vid": "1",
    "name": "Another Forum on the site",
    "description": "",
    "format": null,
    "weight": "10"
  }'

The vid property needs to be the "vocabulary id" of the forums vocabulary. The uuid and the tid of the newly-created term will be generated for you. Unfortunately, the tid will not be returned for you to reference. You need to query again to find it.

curl -i -X GET \
  -H Cookie:SESSe6abeefcafe=ovQpO6ahoQYUUREX23bre_2Q1onya55i9fbmzq7TWEE \
  -H Accept:application/json \
  'http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_term?parameters\[name\]=Another+Forum+on+the+site'

Response:

[{
  "tid": "36",
  "vid": "1",
  "name": "Another Forum on the site",
  "description": "",
  "format": null,
  "weight": "10",
  "uuid": "dcbe0118-c160-4556-b0b6-1813241bb851",
  "uri": "http://myserver/rest/taxonomy_term/36"
}]

Therefore, make sure you use unique names for these "terms".