CODEWITHSUNDEEP
restgithubcurlazure-devops
agw2021
agw2021

Reputation: 354

How do I get and download the contents of a file in GitHub using the REST API?

I am trying to use the GitHub API to retrieve and download the contents of a file in my GitHub repository to mimic how I am using the Azure DevOps REST API.

My ADO URL is:

https://dev.azure.com/<Org>/<Project>/_apis/git/repositories/<Repository>/items?versionType=branch&version=develop&path=<Path to file>/DEV1.yml&download=true

Above works perfectly fine and if I type that into my browser, it immediately downloads the DEV1.yml file.

I am trying to mimic this implementation using GitHub's REST API. My URL looks like:

https://api.github.com/repos/<Org>/<Repository>/contents/<Path to file>/DEV1.yml&download=true

This GitHub URL does not work in the browser, I assume it's because the repo is private and I need a token. However when I use curl:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <PAT>" https://api.github.com/repos/<Org>/<Repository>/contents/<Path to file>/DEV1.yml&download=true

This returns a large base64 encoded JSON object. I attempted to use the URL in place of the existing ADO one and it failed.

Are the 2 above URLs not the same?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 5109

Answers (1)

Bowman Zhu
Bowman Zhu

Reputation: 7251

Yes, it is different.

Github REST API download files has two steps.

1, The first step is get the download url.

The url format like this:

https://api.github.com/repos/<Project Name>/<Repository Name>/contents/<File Name>

The response format like this:

enter image description here

2, The second step is using the download url to get the file content.

The url format like this:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<Project Name>/<Repository Name>/main/<File Name>?token=<Random Token that related to Revision Version>

Please notice that the first step can't skip, otherwise you will be unable to get the revision token.

I can achieve your requirement using python:

import requests

#Define required information
project_name = "xxx"
repository_name = "xxx"
# repository_name = "xxx"
branch_name = "xxx"
File_name = "xxx"
PAT = "xxx"
url = "https://api.github.com/repos/"+project_name+"/"+repository_name+"/contents/"+File_name

#downoad file from github
payload = {}
headers = {
    'Authorization': 'token '+PAT
}

#download file
file_content = requests.request("GET", ((requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data=payload)).json())['download_url'], headers=headers, data=payload)
print(file_content.text)

Successfully get the latest contents(I am also based on private repository):

enter image description here

Upvotes: 3

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