Your First Query¶

Let's walk through making your first successful API call to the Danish Parliament API step by step.

Step 1: Open Your Terminal¶

Open a terminal or command prompt on your system.

Step 2: Basic API Call¶

Start with the simplest possible query to get 5 recent cases:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24top=5"

Expected Result

You should see JSON data containing 5 parliamentary cases with fields like id, titel, offentlighedskode, and opdateringsdato.

Step 3: Understanding the Response¶

The response structure looks like this:

{
  "odata.metadata": "https://oda.ft.dk/api/$metadata#Sag",
  "value": [
    {
      "id": 102903,
      "titel": "Kommissionsmeddelelse om den europæiske grønne pagt...",
      "offentlighedskode": "O",
      "opdateringsdato": "2025-09-09T17:49:11.87",
      "periodeid": 32,
      "statsbudgetsag": true,
      "statusid": 11,
      "typeid": 5,
      "kategoriid": 19,
      "numero": null,
      "lovnummer": null,
      "lovnummerdato": null,
      "retsinformationsurl": null,
      "fremsatundersagid": null,
      "deltundersagid": null
    }
  ]
}

Key fields explained: - id: Unique identifier for the case - titel: Title of the parliamentary case - offentlighedskode: Publicity code ("O" = Open/Public) - opdateringsdato: Last update timestamp - periodeid: Parliamentary period identifier

Step 4: Format the Response (Optional)¶

For better readability, pipe the response through jq if you have it installed:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24top=5" | jq '.'

Or just get the titles:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24top=5" | jq '.value[].titel'

Step 5: Try a Filter Query¶

Let's search for cases containing the word "budget":

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24filter=substringof('budget',titel)&%24top=3"

Step 6: Get More Specific Data¶

Let's only retrieve specific fields to improve performance:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24select=id,titel,opdateringsdato&%24top=5"

Step 7: Explore Other Entities¶

Get Politicians and Actors¶

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Akt%C3%B8r?%24top=5"

Get Recent Voting Sessions¶

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Afstemning?%24top=3"

Get Documents¶

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Dokument?%24top=3"

Step 8: Add Relationships¶

Include related data using $expand:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24expand=Sagskategori&%24top=3"

This returns each case with its category information nested inside.

Step 9: Verify Data Freshness¶

Check how recent the data is:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24orderby=opdateringsdato%20desc&%24top=1&%24select=titel,opdateringsdato"

You should see very recent timestamps, often within hours of the current time.

Step 10: Count Total Records¶

Get the total number of cases in the system:

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24inlinecount=allpages&%24top=1" | jq '."odata.count"'

This will return a number like "96538", showing the massive size of the dataset.

Troubleshooting¶

If You Get an Error¶

HTTP 400 Bad Request - Check that you're using %24 instead of $ - Verify spaces are encoded as %20

"command not found" in shell - You're missing the %24 encoding - Shell is interpreting $ as a variable

Empty response - API might be temporarily unavailable - Check your internet connection - Verify the URL is correct

Success Indicators¶

✅ HTTP 200 status code ✅ JSON response with "odata.metadata" field ✅ "value" array containing data ✅ Recent "opdateringsdato" timestamps

Next Steps¶

Now that you've made your first successful API call:

URL Encoding - Master proper URL encoding
Common Mistakes - Avoid these pitfalls
API Reference - Explore all 50 entities

Quick Experiments¶

Try these queries to explore the API:

Find Climate Legislation¶

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24filter=substringof('klima',titel)&%24top=5"

Get Latest Updates¶

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Sag?%24filter=year(opdateringsdato)%20eq%202025&%24orderby=opdateringsdato%20desc&%24top=5"

Explore Voting Data¶

curl "https://oda.ft.dk/api/Afstemning?%24expand=Stemme&%24top=1"

Congratulations! You've successfully made your first API calls to the Danish Parliament API. The system contains 74+ years of parliamentary data waiting to be explored.