Zotero write api returning 403

nchaterjee

Hi,

can any developer help me in understanding why the zotero write api is returning 403 (forbidden) status.

POST url : 'https://api.zotero.org/users/<userid>/items'

header : 'Content-Type': 'application/json'

data : '{"items": [{"extra": "", "language": "", "itemType": "webpage", "shortTitle": "", "title": "DjangoTricks: Basics", "url": "http://djangotricks.blogspot.in/search/label/Basics", "notes": [], "rights": "", "attachments": [], "accessDate": "2013-03-16 05:04:21", "websiteType": "", "date": "", "abstractNote": "1112233", "creators": [{"lastName": "test", "creatorType": "contributor", "firstName": "test2"}], "tags": [], "websiteTitle": ""}]}'

adamsmith

please post API questions to zotero-dev
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/zotero-dev

nchaterjee

Thanks for the comment,

Actually i figured it out, the zotero API documentation is faulty which states :

Creating an Item

POST <userOrGroupPrefix>/items
Content-Type: application/json
Zotero-Write-Token: <write token>

that results in wrong api url:

'https://api.zotero.org/users/<userid>/items'

but the actual post url should be:

'https://api.zotero.org/users/<userid>/items?key=<apikey>;

It works like a charm after this correction.

dstillman

The documentation isn't faulty. Every authenticated request requires an API key, as explained at the top of the page:

An API key with write access to a given library is necessary to use write methods.

And the key parameter itself is explained on the Read Requests page.

It's assumed that you'll do this in your code automatically for all such requests, so we don't clutter the documentation by showing it with every example.

nchaterjee

oh gr8 !

i missed the detail :

An API key with write access to a given library is necessary to use write methods.

thanks !

dstillman

Also, the 403 response says this:

You must specify a key to access the Zotero API.

Make sure you're looking at error responses when working with the API, since it'll make things much easier for you.