Using the HTTP content negotiation mechanism, you can select the representation to be returned and can also instruct the web service to compress the data to be returned.

Format selection

The following data formats are supported by the web service.

Data formats:

• SDMX-ML 2.1 Generic Data format: application/vnd.sdmx.genericdata+xml;version=2.1. This is the default for data queries.

• SDMX-ML 2.1 Structure Specific Data format: application/vnd.sdmx.structurespecificdata+xml;version=2.1

• SDMX-JSON: application/vnd.sdmx.data+json;version=1.0.0-wd

• CSV: text/csv

• CSV, optimised for pivot tables: application/vnd.ecb.data+csv;version=1.0.0

Metadata formats:

• SDMX-ML Structure format: application/vnd.sdmx.structure+xml;version=2.1

For additional information about the various SDMX-ML formats, please see the SDMX documentation.

Generic MIME types (application/json, application/xml) are also supported but they will always point to the most recent version of the SDMX formats supported by these web services. That version will change in the future whenever new versions of the various SDMX formats are made available.

Is it therefore highly recommended that implementers use one of the specific MIME types above rather than a generic one. This helps avoid issues when new versions of the formats are released.

Output compression

You can also enable data compression using the Accept-Encoding HTTP header field. Compressed messages are typically significantly smaller than uncompressed messages, which can lead to improvements when transferring large amounts of data over the network.