Hi,

You should be able to access blocks in pretty much the same way as you access content via the API using the /api/episerver/v2.0/content/{contentReference} endpoint. You'll just need to pass in either the ID or the GUID of the block you want to retrieve. As with any request to the content delivery API, make sure you pass in an Accept-language HTTP header otherwise you might not get the content item returned.

The simple way to limit the fields returned is to use the "select" querystring parameter which accepts a comma delimited set of fields to return. For example, to return the "Heading" and "IncludePublishDate" properties of a block with ID = 68, your request URL would look like this:

/api/episerver/v2.0/content/68?select=heading,includePublishDate

Thanks for the response.

The issue with accessing blocks is ,it needs to be associated with some page & only then i can access the block.What if i just want to get the properties of a block in this case a Contact Block & use it in my front end app?

You can access the block directly using the method Paul has described. You need the ID of the block that you can get when viewing/editing it in the UI: 

Think we relied at the same time saying the same thing there Paul :) 

Thanks Paul & David.That makes it much more clear to understand.However,i have a follow up question on this.How does it works in case of a block with a hierarchy.

Going with the example of Contact Block,this contains some content areas in the form of multiple addresses.So the response that i get using /api/episerver/v2.0/content/{contentReference} endpoint is related to contact block(Name,comments for instance being the properties of Contact block).For Content Areas, below is the response with another id given in the link ie 13411 in this case.

"Addresses":{"value":[{"displayOption":"","tag":null,"contentLink":{"id":13411,"workId":0,"guidValue":"b1581035-9337-455d-bdb6-149e60c450ba","providerName":null,"url":null,"expanded":null}}],"propertyDataType":"PropertyContentArea"}

So, to use this block with multiple hierarchy, will it be the same approach with multiple endpoint calls or we get the id using contentlink.id property from first call & initiate a second call?

Note:The example on the above contact block is a made up so please excuse if it makes no logical sense.

Regards.

Hi,

If your content has references to other content such as content in ContentAreas and you want to automatically retrieve that content in the same request, you can use the "expand" parameter. You can limit it to just expanding certain fields by naming them or you can expand all expandable fields by passing * as the value for the expand field. For example, to request a content with ID=123 and expand two content area properties, your query would look like this:

/api/episerver/v2.0/content/68?expand=MyContentAreaProperty,MyOtherContentAreaProperty

Thanks again Paul.

The expand parameter is helpful only when there is 2 level ie Contacts---- Addresses in this case.

The above is fine but what happens when it goes to level more than 2.If I have another contentarea within Address.How will i achieve this?

Below is the Block Structure that i have:

ContactBlock:

String: Name

String:Comments

ContentArea: Addresses

Address Block:

String : Street

ContentArea: Cities

City Block:

String: Name

This is a 3 level structure for a block.

Hello Farhin

By default the API expands one level deep. If you want to expand beyond one level deep you can you extend it as described in the documentation here:

https://world.episerver.com/documentation/developer-guides/content-delivery-api/getting-started/how-to-customize-data-returned-to-clients/#ContentAreaPropertyModel

David