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Frequently Asked Questions Edit

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This page provides solutions to some common questions and problems that may arise while using the API. If your question is not explained here it may have been answered in the WordPress support forums.

Can I disable the REST API? Can I disable the REST API?

You should not disable the REST API, because doing so will break WordPress Admin functionality that depends on the API being active. However, you may use a filter to require that API consumers be authenticated, which effectively prevents anonymous external access. See below for more information.

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Require Authentication for All Reque​sts Require Authentication for All Reque​sts

You can require authentication for all REST API requests by adding an is_user_logged_in check to the rest_authentication_errors filter:

add_filter( 'rest_authentication_errors', function( $result ) {
    if ( ! empty( $result ) ) {
        return $result;
    }
    if ( ! is_user_logged_in() ) {
        return new WP_Error( 'rest_not_logged_in', 'You are not currently logged in.', array( 'status' => 401 ) );
    }
    return $result;
});

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Can I make API requests from PHP within a plugin? Can I make API requests from PHP within a plugin?

Yes, you can! Use rest_do_request to make API requests internally within other WordPress code:

$request = new WP_REST_Request( 'GET', '/wp/v2/posts' );
// Set one or more request query parameters
$request->set_param( 'per_page', 20 );
$response = rest_do_request( $request );

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What happened to the ?filter= query parameter? What happened to the ?filter= query parameter?

When the REST API was merged into WordPress core the ?filter query parameter was removed to prevent future compatibility and maintenance issues. The ability to pass arbitrary WP_Query arguments to the API using a ?filter query parameter was necessary at the genesis of the REST API project, but most API response filtering functionality has been superseded by more robust query parameters like ?categories=, ?slug= and ?per_page=.

First-party query parameters should be used whenever possible. However, the rest-filter plugin restores the ability to pass arbitrary ?filter values in API request if needed.

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Query parameters are not working Query parameters are not working

If you find that query parameters such as ?page=2 or ?_embed are not having any effect, your server may not be properly configured to detect them. If you are using Nginx to serve your website, look for a try_files line in your site configuration. If it looks like this:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$args;

change it to this:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;

Adding $is_args (which will print a ? character if query arguments are found) will allow WordPress to properly receive and interpret the query parameters.

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Why is Authentication not working? Why is Authentication not working?

If you’re finding that you are sending Authentication headers but the request is not being accepted, and you’re using Apache in a CGI environment, Apache may be stripping the headers. Try adding this to a configuration file or .htaccess:

<IfModule mod_setenvif>
  SetEnvIf Authorization "(.*)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1
</IfModule>