Using the Query Service

You can use the VMware Cloud Director API query service to query the VMware Cloud Director database for information about objects in the cloud.

The query service provides the following kinds of queries:

• Typed queries, which require you to construct a query URL that specifies a query type and optional parameters.
• Packaged queries, which have well-known URLs and can accept many of the same parameters used with typed queries.

Both typed and packaged queries allow you to specify one of the following formats in which to display the result set:

• A records format that returns name=value pairs for all properties of each matching object. This is the default. A name can be either a static or dynamic. Static names are predefined object property names, and are returned in an object-specific QueryRecordResultType element. For a list of these names, see the Queries reference pages in the VMware Cloud Director API Schema Reference. Dynamic names are user-defined metadata key names. Dynamic name=value pairs are not returned unless the object includes a non-empty Metadata element. See Working with Object Metadata.
• An idrecords format that is identical to the records format, except that object reference values are returned in id format rather than href format. See Objects, References, and Representations.
• A references format that returns a reference in href format to each object that matches the query criteria.

Query results are paginated, and include links to previous and next pages where needed. Page size can be specified in the query request. Default and maximum page sizes are specified in the VMware Cloud Director configuration. You can also apply filter criteria to the list of items returned.