Use PATCH to update data

When using the PUT method, the client must supply all data in an entry to be replaced, even when only changing one small part. This makes it difficult to change, for example, the description of an ACL without sending the content of the ACL back in the request.

The PATCH method allows individual values to be replaced without requiring all the data to be sent. With PATCH, the client need only send the modified values in a query, along with enough information to uniquely identify the entry.

For example, to update the description of the blockbadhosts ACL using PATCH, the client must only include the name of the ACL and the new description. It does not need to include the entire content of the ACL and its rules as it would with a PUT request.

Item	Value
Request Type	-X PATCH (change content)
Content Type	-H "Content-Type: application/yang-data+json"
ACL Name	blockbadhosts
ACL Description	Block packets from bad hosts

The command is formatted similarly to the PUT request in the previous example.

Warning

The Content-Type header must be set when performing a write operation such as PUT or PATCH. The value of the header must reflect the type of data being sent. These examples use JSON, so the header is set to application/yang-data+json. When submitting XML, it would be application/yang-data+xml

Command:

$ curl -f --cert ~/tnsr/tnsr-restconf-client.crt \
  --key ~/tnsr/tnsr-restconf-client.key \
  --cacert ~/tnsr/tnsr-restconf-CA.crt \
  -H "Content-Type: application/yang-data+json" \
  -X PATCH \
  -d '{"netgate-acl:acl-list":[{"acl-name": "blockbadhosts","acl-description": "Block packets from bad hosts"}]}' \
  https://tnsr.example.com/restconf/data/netgate-acl:acl-config/acl-table/acl-list=blockbadhosts/

Output: This command has no output when it works successfully.

Retrieve the contents of the ACL again to see that the new description is now present:

Command:

$ curl -f --cert ~/tnsr/tnsr-restconf-client.crt \
  --key ~/tnsr/tnsr-restconf-client.key \
  --cacert ~/tnsr/tnsr-restconf-CA.crt \
  -X GET \
  https://tnsr.example.com/restconf/data/netgate-acl:acl-config/acl-table/acl-list=blockbadhosts

Output:

{
    "netgate-acl:acl-list": [
      {
        "acl-name": "blockbadhosts",
        "acl-description": "Block packets from bad hosts",
        "acl-rules": {
          "acl-rule": [
            {
              "sequence": 1,
              "action": "deny",
              "ip-version": "ipv4",
              "src-ip-prefix": "203.0.113.14/32"
            },
            {
              "sequence": 2,
              "action": "deny",
              "ip-version": "ipv4",
              "src-ip-prefix": "203.0.113.15/32"
            },
            {
              "sequence": 10,
              "action": "deny",
              "ip-version": "ipv4",
              "src-ip-prefix": "10.222.111.222/32"
            },
            {
              "sequence": 555,
              "action": "deny",
              "ip-version": "ipv4",
              "src-ip-prefix": "5.5.5.5/32"
            },
            {
              "sequence": 5000,
              "acl-rule-description": "Default Permit",
              "action": "permit",
              "ip-version": "ipv4"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  }