---
id: 'http'
title: 'http: RESTful Client'
description: 'An HTTP Client for Postgres Functions.'
video: 'https://www.youtube.com/v/rARgrELRCwY'
---

The `http` extension allows you to call RESTful endpoints within Postgres.

## Quick demo

<YouTube id="rARgrELRCwY" title="Calling an external API with the http extension" />

## Overview

This section covers basic concepts:

- REST: stands for REpresentational State Transfer. It's a way to request data from external services.
- RESTful APIs are servers which accept HTTP "calls". The calls are typically:
  - `GET` − Read only access to a resource.
  - `POST` − Creates a new resource.
  - `DELETE` − Removes a resource.
  - `PUT` − Updates an existing resource or creates a new resource.

You can use the `http` extension to make these network requests from Postgres.

## Usage

### Enable the extension

<Tabs
  scrollable
  size="small"
  type="underlined"
  defaultActiveId="dashboard"
  queryGroup="database-method"
>
<TabPanel id="dashboard" label="Dashboard">

1. Go to the [Database](/dashboard/project/_/database/tables) page in the Dashboard.
2. Click on **Extensions** in the sidebar.
3. Search for `http` and enable the extension.

</TabPanel>
<TabPanel id="sql" label="SQL">

```sql
-- Example: enable the "http" extension
create extension http with schema extensions;

-- Example: disable the "http" extension
drop extension if exists http;
```

Even though the SQL code is `create extension`, this is the equivalent of "enabling the extension".
To disable an extension, call `drop extension`.

It's good practice to create the extension within a separate schema (like `extensions`) to keep the `public` schema clean.

</TabPanel>
</Tabs>

### Available functions

While the main usage is `http('http_request')`, there are 5 wrapper functions for specific functionality:

- `http_get()`
- `http_post()`
- `http_put()`
- `http_delete()`
- `http_head()`

### Returned values

A successful call to a web URL from the `http` extension returns a record with the following fields:

- `status`: integer
- `content_type`: character varying
- `headers`: http_header[]
- `content`: character varying. Typically you would want to cast this to `jsonb` using the format `content::jsonb`

## Examples

### Basic `GET` example [#simple-get-example]

```sql
select
  "status", "content"::jsonb
from
  extensions.http_get('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1');
```

### Basic `POST` example [#simple-post-example]

```sql
select
  "status", "content"::jsonb
from
  extensions.http_post(
    'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts',
    '{ "title": "foo", "body": "bar", "userId": 1 }',
    'application/json'
  );
```

## Resources

- Official [`http` GitHub Repository](https://github.com/pramsey/pgsql-http)