5.5

Table Of Contents
Valid values for the HTTP Accept header in this release are:
version=5.5
The request is from a vCloud API version 5.5 client.
version=5.1
The request is from a vCloud API version 5.1 client.
version=1.5
The request is from a vCloud API version 1.5 client.
In general, client requests can access objects defined by any version of the
vCloud API that is less than or equal to the version specified in the Accept
header. Exceptions to this rule are mentioned in the vCloud Director Release
Notes.
Accept-Encoding
By default, vCloud Director returns response content as uncompressed XML.
Compressing the response can improve performance, especially when the
response is large and network bandwidth is a factor. (Requests cannot be
compressed.) To request a response to be returned as compressed XML,
include the following header:
Accept-Encoding: gzip
The response is encoded using gzip encoding as described in RFC 1952, and
includes the following header:
Content-Encoding: gzip
In the default configuration, responses smaller than 64KB are never
compressed.
Authorization
All requests from authenticated clients must include an Authorization
header. See “Logging In,” on page 24 for details about the value of this
header.
Content-Type
Requests that include a body must include an appropriate HTTP Content-
Type header. Content types for all elements are listed in the schema reference.
In addition, the type attribute of a response body indicates the content type
of the document. For example, this response fragment indicates that the
content type associated with a CatalogItem object is
application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml.
<CatalogItem
type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml"
href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/catalogItem/221"
name="Ubuntu Template with vsftpd"/>
A POST or PUT request that supplies a CatalogItem in the request body
requires the following Content-Type header:
Content-Type: application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.catalogItem+xml
When it appears as the value of a Content-Type header or the type attribute
of an element in the vCloud API, this string is case-insensitive in requests,
and can be returned in either mixed case or lowercase characters in
responses.
Request Bodies
vCloud Director uses a validating XML parser that requires elements in a request body to agree with the
schema in order and number. Request bodies are rejected as invalid unless they meet the following criteria:
n
XML namespace attributes must be supplied for all namespaces represented by elements in the request.
See “XML Namespace Identifiers,” on page 359.
Chapter 1 About the VMware vCloud API
VMware, Inc. 19