Default language.

Important This documentation space contains information about the SaaS version of BMC Helix Discovery. If you are using the on-premises version of BMC Helix Discovery, see BMC Helix Discovery 25.2 (On-Premises).

XML API

The XML API enables users to interrogate the datastore using a script or program, and receive data back as a stream of XML, an empty string, or a return code. 

Note

Permissions are required for XML and CSV APIs. You need to grant the API access permission (api-access group), or update group permissions to include the api/access permission for users who require access to the CSV and XML APIs.

We recommend the use of REST API for new integrations as it provides more control when retrieving data, and provides a range of additional features across its endpoints.

Usage

The XML API is intended to be used by a script or program. It can also be accessed using a browser, or using the wget command, though these would generally be used for testing. The following section describes the parameters required and values returned when using the XML API. The query is specified as a URL of the form:

https://service/ui/api/XmlApi?query=search_string&username=username&password=password

The URL is entered on a single line. In these examples, service is the service address, search_string is a query string as recognized by the datastore, username and password are the user name and password of the BMC Helix Discovery user.

HTML URL Encoding

When constructing a URL string, care must be taken to properly encode characters that are not allowed in a URL, for example spaces:
https://appliance/ui/api/XmlApi?query=Search%20Host%20show%20name&username=username&password=password
A reference of encodings can be found here.

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*