REST API Filtering¶

Filtering Objects¶

The objects returned by an API list endpoint can be filtered by attaching one or more query parameters to the request URL. For example, GET /api/dcim/sites/?status=active will return only sites with a status of "active."

Multiple parameters can be joined to further narrow results. For example, GET /api/dcim/sites/?status=active&region=europe will return only active sites within the Europe region.

Generally, passing multiple values for a single parameter will result in a logical OR operation. For example, GET /api/dcim/sites/?region=north-america&region=south-america will return sites in North America or South America. However, a logical AND operation will be used in instances where a field may have multiple values, such as tags. For example, GET /api/dcim/sites/?tag=foo&tag=bar will return only sites which have both the "foo" and "bar" tags applied.

Filtering by Choice Field¶

Some models have fields which are limited to specific choices, such as the status field on the Prefix model. To find all available choices for this field, make an authenticated OPTIONS request to the model's list endpoint, and use jq to extract the relevant parameters:

$ curl -s -X OPTIONS \
-H "Authorization: Token $TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
http://nautobot/api/ipam/prefixes/ | jq ".actions.POST.status.choices"
[
  {
    "value": "container",
    "display": "Container"
  },
  {
    "value": "active",
    "display": "Active"
  },
  {
    "value": "reserved",
    "display": "Reserved"
  },
  {
    "value": "deprecated",
    "display": "Deprecated"
  }
]

Filtering by Custom Field¶

To filter results by a custom field value, prepend cf_ to the custom field name. For example, the following query will return only sites where a custom field named foo is equal to 123:

GET /api/dcim/sites/?cf_foo=123

Custom fields can be mixed with built-in fields to further narrow results. When creating a custom string field, the type of filtering selected (loose versus exact) determines whether partial or full matching is used.

Lookup Expressions¶

Certain model fields also support filtering using additional lookup expressions. This allows for negation and other context-specific filtering.

These lookup expressions can be applied by adding a suffix to the desired field's name, e.g. mac_address__n. In this case, the filter expression is for negation and it is separated by two underscores. Below are the lookup expressions that are supported across different field types.

Numeric Fields¶

Numeric based fields (ASN, VLAN ID, etc) support these lookup expressions:

• n - not equal to (negation)
• lt - less than
• lte - less than or equal
• gt - greater than
• gte - greater than or equal

String Fields¶

String based (char) fields (Name, Address, etc) support these lookup expressions:

• n - not equal to (negation)
• ic - case insensitive contains
• nic - negated case insensitive contains
• isw - case insensitive starts with
• nisw - negated case insensitive starts with
• iew - case insensitive ends with
• niew - negated case insensitive ends with
• ie - case insensitive exact match
• nie - negated case insensitive exact match

Foreign Keys & Other Fields¶

Certain other fields, namely foreign key relationships support just the negation expression: n.