The REST API¶

All of what’s possible to do with the website is also possible via a web API. This document explains how the API is organized and how you can query it.

The main supported data format is JSON. When using POST or PUT, you can either pass data encoded in JSON or in application/x-www-form-urlencoded format.

Overall organisation¶

You can access three different things: projects, members and bills. You can also get the balance for a project.

The examples here are using curl, feel free to use whatever you want to do the same thing, curl is not a requirement.

Authentication¶

To interact with bills and members, and for any action other than creating a new project, you need to be authenticated. The simplest way to authenticate is to use “basic” HTTP authentication with the project ID and private code.

For instance, to obtain information about a project, using curl:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo

It is also possible to generate a token, and then use it later to authenticate instead of basic auth. For instance, start by generating the token (of course, you need to authenticate):

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/token
{"token": "WyJ0ZXN0Il0.Rt04fNMmxp9YslCRq8hB6jE9s1Q"}

Make sure to store this token securely: it allows almost full access to the project. For instance, use it to obtain information about the project (replace PROJECT_TOKEN with the actual token):

$ curl --oauth2-bearer "PROJECT_TOKEN" https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo

This works by sending the token in the Authorization header, so doing it “manually” with curl looks like:

$ curl --header "Authorization: Bearer PROJECT_TOKEN" https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo

This token can also be used to authenticate for a project on the web interface, which can be useful to generate invitation links. You would simply create an URL of the form:

https://ihatemoney.org/demo/join/PROJECT_TOKEN

Such a link grants read-write access to the project associated with the token, but it does not allow to change project settings.

Projects¶

You can’t list projects, for security reasons. But you can create, update and delete one directly from the API.

The URLs are /api/projects and /api/projects/<identifier>.

Creating a project¶

A project needs the following arguments:

name: the project name (string)
id: the project identifier (string without special chars or spaces)
password: the project password / private code (string)
contact_email: the contact email, used to recover the private code (string)

Optional arguments:

default_currency: the default currency to use for a multi-currency project, in ISO 4217 format. Bills are converted to this currency for operations like balance or statistics. Default value: XXX (no currency).

Here is the command:

$ curl -X POST https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects \
-d 'name=yay&id=yay&password=yay&contact_email=yay@notmyidea.org'
"yay"

As you can see, the API returns the identifier of the project. It might be different from what you requested, because the ID is normalized (remove special characters, change to lowercase, etc).

Getting information about the project¶

Getting information about the project:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo
{
    "id": "demo",
    "name": "demonstration",
    "contact_email": "demo@notmyidea.org",
    "default_currency": "XXX",
    "members": [{"id": 11515, "name": "f", "weight": 1.0, "activated": true, "balance": 0},
                {"id": 11531, "name": "g", "weight": 1.0, "activated": true, "balance": 0},
                {"id": 11532, "name": "peter", "weight": 1.0, "activated": true, "balance": 5.0},
                {"id": 11558, "name": "Monkey", "weight": 1.0, "activated": true, "balance": 0},
                {"id": 11559, "name": "GG", "weight": 1.0, "activated": true, "balance": -5.0}]
}

Updating a project¶

Updating a project is done with the PUT verb:

$ curl --basic -u yay:yay -X PUT\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/yay -d\
'name=yay&id=yay&current_password=yay&password=newyay&contact_email=youpi@notmyidea.org'

You need to give the current private code as the current_password field. This is a security measure to ensure that knowledge of an auth token is not enough to update settings.

Note that in any case you can never change the ID of a project.

Deleting a project¶

Just send a DELETE request ont the project URI :

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X DELETE https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo

Members¶

You can get all the members with a GET on /api/projects/<id>/members:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/members\
[{"weight": 1, "activated": true, "id": 31, "name": "Arnaud"},
 {"weight": 1, "activated": true, "id": 32, "name": "Alexis"},
 {"weight": 1, "activated": true, "id": 33, "name": "Olivier"},
 {"weight": 1, "activated": true, "id": 34, "name": "Jeanne"}]

Add a member with a POST request on /api/projects/<id>/members:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X POST\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/members -d 'name=tatayoyo'
35

You can also PUT a new version of a member (changing its name):

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X PUT\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/members/36\
-d 'name=yeaaaaah'
{"activated": true, "id": 36, "name": "yeaaaaah", "weight": 1}

Delete a member with a DELETE request on /api/projects/<id>/members/<member-id>:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X DELETE\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/members/35
"OK

Bills¶

You can get the list of bills by doing a GET on /api/projects/<id>/bills :

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/bills

Or get a specific bill by ID:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/bills/42
{
  "id": 42,
  "payer_id": 11,
  "owers": [
    {
      "id": 22,
      "name": "Alexis",
      "weight": 1,
      "activated": true
    }
  ],
  "amount": 100,
  "date": "2020-12-24",
  "creation_date": "2021-01-13",
  "what": "Raclette du nouvel an",
  "external_link": "",
  "original_currency": "XXX",
  "converted_amount": 100
}

amount is expressed in the original_currency of the bill, while converted_amount is expressed in the project default_currency. Here, they are the same.

Add a bill with a POST query on /api/projects/<id>/bills. You need the following required parameters:

what: what has been paid (string)
payer: paid by who? (id)
payed_for: for who ? (id). To set multiple id, simply pass the parameter multiple times (x-www-form-urlencoded) or pass a list of id (JSON).
amount: amount payed (float)

And optional parameters:

date: the date of the bill (yyyy-mm-dd format). Defaults to current date if not provided.
original_currency: the currency in which amount has been paid (ISO 4217 code). Only makes sense for a project with currencies. Defaults to the project default_currency.
external_link: an optional URL associated with the bill.

Returns the id of the created bill :

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X POST\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/bills\
-d "date=2011-09-10&what=raclette&payer=1&payed_for=3&payed_for=5&amount=200"
80

You can also PUT a new version of the bill at /api/projects/<id>/bills/<bill-id>:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X PUT\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/bills/80\
-d "date=2011-09-10&what=raclette&payer=1&payed_for=3&payed_for=5&payed_for=1&amount=250"
80

And you can of course DELETE them at /api/projects/<id>/bills/<bill-id>:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo -X DELETE\
https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/bills/80\
"OK"

Statistics¶

You can get some project stats with a GET on /api/projects/<id>/statistics:

$ curl --basic -u demo:demo https://ihatemoney.org/api/projects/demo/statistics
[
    {
        "member": {"activated": true, "id": 1, "name": "alexis", "weight": 1.0},
        "paid": 25.5,
        "spent": 15,
        "balance": 10.5
    },
    {
        "member": {"activated": true, "id": 2, "name": "jeanne", "weight": 1.0},
        "paid": 5,
        "spent": 15.5,
        "balance": -10.5
    }
]

Currencies¶

You can get a list of supported currencies with a GET on /api/currencies:

$ curl --basic https://ihatemoney.org/api/currencies
[
    "XXX",
    "AED",
    "AFN",
    .
    .
    .
    "ZAR",
    "ZMW",
    "ZWL"
]