REST API changelog since 4.7 release

We’ve published a changelog page for the REST API: https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/changelog/

This page can be updated using git logs as follows:

git clone https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop
cd wordpress-develop
# for a previous release
git log --reverse 4.7.1...4.7.2 src/wp-includes/rest-api* src/wp-includes/js/wp-api.js tests/phpunit/tests/rest-api* tests/qunit/wp-includes/js/wp-api.js tests/qunit/fixtures/wp-api*
# for an upcoming release
git log --reverse 4.7.2...origin/4.7 #[paths here]

Many of the changes made so far are pretty clean fixes. Some do have backwards-compatibility implications, which is not ideal, but we’ve recognized since the 4.7 release that there was still more left to do on the APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.. Long-term, it’s going to be best to make these fixes very early in the history of the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/., before people start depending on the broken behavior and we have to support it.

In addition to the items already noted on the changelog page, there are a few more fixes coming that we’re aware of. For example:

  • #39933 – correctly parse body parameters for DELETE requests
  • #39701 – remove broken multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site users handling to prepare for full implementation in 4.8 (see also this post)
  • #39256 – multiple issues with setting post and comment dates
  • #38883 – improve date_gmt handling for draft posts
  • #39947sticky handling when listing posts