Get started

This topic provides information to help you get started using the Data API, including setup tasks such as getting your credentials and platform APIs.

Explore data

The easiest way to familiarize yourself with data is to explore data using the HERE platform portal. Click Data in the navigation bar to see a list of catalogs and layers that you have permission to access, including HERE data as well as user-provided data that has been shared with you.

Understanding network considerations

To ensure you can reliably connect to the Data API, note the following:

• HERE platform REST APIs conform to HTTP 1.1 standards.
• Connections to the HERE platform require TLS 1.2 or later. Do not use SSL.
• Expect HTTP redirections. HERE platform uses standard HTTP 1.1 redirection status codes, which you can use to handle redirects in your application.

Get credentials

To use the REST API, you need to have a credentials.properties file. You can obtain this file from platform.here.com. Once you have your credentials properties file, make sure to put it in this folder on your computer:

~/.here/credentials.properties

For more information about obtaining a credentials.properties file, see the Identity & Access Management Guide.

Get an authorization token

HERE platform REST requests require an OAuth 2.0 token in the Authorization header to authenticate. To get an authorization token, use the Authentication and Authorization API. For information on using this API, see the Identity & Access Management Guide.

Get platform APIs

Use the api-lookup service to get the base URLs of all the platform APIs. Platform APIs are those that are not tied to a specific catalog. To get a list of all platform APIs, make this request:

GET /lookup/v1/platform/apis HTTP/1.1
Host: api-lookup.data.api.platform.here.com
Authorization: Bearer <Authorization Token>
Cache-Control: no-cache

curl -X GET
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <Authorization Token>"
     -H "Cache-Control: no-cache"
     https://api-lookup.data.api.platform.here.com/lookup/v1/platform/apis

The response is a list of the platform APIs that you have access to, including their base URLs.

For more information about the api-lookup API, see the API Lookup Developer's Guide.

Discover catalogs

Now that you have a list of platform API base URLs from the api-lookup service, you can use one of the services, config, to get a list of catalogs available to you. Make the request shown below, specifying the base URL for the config service that you obtained through the api-lookup service, and specifying your authorization token in the Authorization header where indicated:

GET /config/v1/catalogs HTTP/1.1
Host: <Hostname for config>
Authorization: Bearer <Authorization Token>
Cache-Control: no-cache

curl -X GET
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <Authorization Token>"
     -H "Cache-Control: no-cache"
     https://<Hostname for config>/config/v1/catalogs

The response is a listing the catalogs you have access to.

Get the API base URLs for a catalog

In the HERE platform, the base URL for an API is unique for each HERE Resource Name (HRN) served by the API. This means that instead of having static base URLs for each REST API, the HERE platform generates a base URL for each API for every HRN. For example, the base URL for the publish service for catalog A is different from the base URL for the publish service for catalog B.

You can obtain the API base URLs for a catalog by using the api-lookup service, specifying the catalog's HRN where indicated:

GET /lookup/v1/resources/<HRN>/apis HTTP/1.1
Host: api-lookup.data.api.platform.here.com
Authorization: Bearer <Authorization Token>
Cache-Control: no-cache

curl -X GET
     -H "Authorization: Bearer <Authorization Token>"
     -H "Cache-Control: no-cache"
     https://api-lookup.data.api.platform.here.com/lookup/v1/resources/<HRN>/apis

The response is a list of the APIs for the catalog.

Perform common tasks

Now that you have discovered the APIs and catalogs available to you, you can perform common tasks such as getting or publishing data and creating catalogs.

For complete details on the Data API, see the API Reference.

Other ways of working with data

Aside from the REST API, the HERE platform provides other ways of working with data.

HERE platform portal

The HERE platform portal provides access to basic data management features as well as data visualization. The platform portal is useful for:

• Business analysts, data scientists, and developers who want to explore and analyze data
• Developers and administrators who want to manage data
• Developers who want to visualize the output of their data processing on a map

Command Line Interface (CLI)

The Command Line Interface (CLI) offers the same data management functions that are available in the platform portal (such as creating catalogs and layers, listing catalogs and layers, getting metadata), but the OLP CLI enables you to execute these commands in a programmatic way. Further, commands can be stored in scripts so you can run repetitive commands easily without rewriting them from scratch.

The CLI is useful for:

• Developers who want programmatic access to the functions available in the platform portal
• Developers and administrators who want to automate data management tasks in scripts

For more information, see the HERE Platform CLI Guide.

Data Client Library

The Data Client Library is a Java/Scala library you can use to read and write data to the HERE platform. It provides a layer of abstraction from the REST APIs which shields you from changes that may occur to HERE platform APIs as they evolve. The Data Client Library also reduces the complexity involved in reading and writing data, reducing the time it takes to add HERE platform data interaction to your applications.

The Data Client Library is part of the Data SDK for Java and Scala, which contains tools to facilitate integration between the various HERE platform component services and other infrastructure-level services like Authentication and Authorization. The Data SDK for Java and Scala helps you focus on designing transformations to meet your business needs rather than writing low-level code.

For more information, see the HERE Workspace for Java and Scala Developers Guide.