March 13, 2021 2 min to read

No Batch No Problem

This post will go over how to expand sub-properties of an OData REST API request without using a batch request. This will be useful in SharePoint 2013+ On-Premise environments where the batch request is not available.

Demo Example

We will query a document set library with the following information:

Document Set library named Doc Set Demo
Document Set content type renamed to Dashboard Item
Document Set item created and called Test

The folders/files included in this item are:

Name	Type	Path
Document.aspx	File	/Document.aspx
Folder	Folder	/Folder
Document.aspx	File	/Folder/Document.aspx
SubFolder	Folder	/Folder/SubFolder
SubDocument.aspx	File	/Folder/SubFolder/Document.aspx
SubSubFolder	Folder	/Folder/SubFolder/SubSubFolder
SubSubDocument.aspx	File	/Folder/SubFolder/SubSubFolder/Document.aspx

Our goal is to get all of this information in one request.

OData Query

The OData query has an Expand property that allows you to include collections of an object. Most people are aware of this, but did you know that you can also include sub-sub-properties too? Neither did I until a month ago :-).

import { List } from "gd-sprest";

// Query the document set demo library
List("Doc Set Demo").Items().query({
    // Filter for only the document set item types
    Filter: "ContentType eq 'Dashboard Item'",
    Expand: [
        "Folder", "Folder/Files",
        "Folder/Folders/Files",
        "Folder/Folders/Folders/Files",
        "Folder/Folders/Folders/Folders/Files"
    ]
}).execute((items) => {
    // Parse the items
    for(let i=0; i<items.results.length; i++) {
        let item = items.results[i];

        // Parse the files
        for(let j=0; j<item.Files.results.length; j++) {
            let file = item.Files.results[j];

            // Code goes here
        }

        // Parse the sub-folder
        for(let j=0; j<item.Files.results.length; j++) {
            let folder = item.Folders.results[j];

            // Code goes here
        }
    }
});