# API - Filter by date

**URL:** <https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [July 14, 2021, 3:21pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001 "2021-07-14T15:21:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unenouvelleville](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/unenouvelleville/32/83_2.png) [@unenouvelleville](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/unenouvelleville)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2021, 3:21pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/1 "2021-07-14T15:21:25Z")

</div>

Hello everyone!

Some years after my first use of Cockpit CMS. Here I come again!

I’m stuck, i don’t find how to filter only a certain date (of \_created) on the API (because I have more than 1000 entries added everyday).

> Example : /api/collections/entries/scans?filter[\_created]=14/07/2021

I would love to get all the entries created today only.

Thank you for your precious help!

Alexis

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abernh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/abernh/32/859_2.png) [@abernh](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/abernh)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2021, 9:34am UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/2 "2021-07-15T09:34:11Z")

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Afaik `_created` and `_modified` are saved as unix timestamps (in seconds).  
Did you try to use a `$lt` / `$gt` filter to filter for items with  
`end-of-day-as-unix-timestamp < value < begin-of-day-as-unix-timestamp` ?

See also [Filtering by date using PHP](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/filtering-by-date-using-php/1602)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unenouvelleville](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/unenouvelleville/32/83_2.png) [@unenouvelleville](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/unenouvelleville)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/3 "2021-07-15T16:43:59Z")

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Thanks for your answer.  
Can’t make it work.

/api/collections/entries/scans?filter[\_created][$gte]=8&filter[\_created][$lt]=16

403 Forbidden?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abernh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/abernh/32/859_2.png) [@abernh](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/abernh)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 7:09am UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/4 "2021-07-16T07:09:34Z")

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I assume you either missed to send a token with the request or the permissions for the collection need to be adjusted. Hence the `403 - Forbidden`

#### Authenticate via `token` query parameter

For the token you have to use

- a custom key, with the single rule `/api/collections/entries/scans` (via Cockpit \> Settings \> API Access)
- a user token for a custom group which has in itself the correct permissions to access the api
- your ‘master api-key’ (which I would not advise because if somebody gets hold of it your whole API can be accessed by them)

```auto
/api/collections/entries/scans?token=YOURTOKENHERE

```

(Other options would be to send the token in the request data as parameter `token` or in the header as `Authorization: Bearer YOURTOKENHERE`)

#### Collection Permissions

You have to adjust the API permissons for your collection via ‘Collection \> Settings \> Permissions’.

You either have to

- assign the custom group of the requesting user and set `Group: allow view entries` (edited)
- or, if using a custom key, set `Public: allow view entries`

#### Filter by day

Assuming we’d look for “today”, 16th of July, we’d have to translate start and end of the day into unix timestamps:

```auto
$timestampStart = mkdate(0, 0, 0, 7, 16, 2021); 
# -> 1626386400

```

- 2021-07-16 00:00:00 = 1626386400
- 2021-07-16 23:59:59 = 1626386400 + 24\*3600 - 1 = 1626472800 - 1

As we’re going to use `$lt` `less than` and `$gt` `greater than` we should actually add/subtract a second here

- newer than: 2021-07-16 00:00:00 - 1second = 1626386400 - 1 = 1626386399
- older than: 2021-07-16 23:59:59 + 1second = 1626472800

And the query params for the filter would then look like that

```auto
filter[_created][$gte]=1626386399&filter[_created][$lt]=1626472800

```

And here comes the full query

```auto
/api/collections/entries/scans?token=YOURTOKENHERE&filter[_created][$gte]=1626386399&filter[_created][$lt]=1626472800

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unenouvelleville](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/unenouvelleville/32/83_2.png) [@unenouvelleville](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/unenouvelleville)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 5:21pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/5 "2021-07-16T17:21:04Z")

</div>

Hello @abernh

Thank you for your detailled answer.

But can’t make it work. With [https://XXXXXXXX/api/collections/get/scans?token=MyToken&filter[\_created][$gte]=1626386399&filter[\_created][$lt]=1626472800](https://XXXXXXXX/api/collections/get/scans?token=MyToken&filter%5B_created%5D%5B%24gte%5D=1626386399&filter%5B_created%5D%5B%24lt%5D=1626472800)

I have a 403 ## Forbidden

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abernh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/abernh/32/859_2.png) [@abernh](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/abernh)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2021, 7:32pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/6 "2021-07-16T19:32:59Z")

</div>

Did you set the necessary permissions?

> [@abernh](#):
>
> - assign the custom group of the requesting user and set `Group: allow view entries` (edited)
> - or, if using a custom key, set `Public: allow view entries`

Are you using

- a user-api-key with “group: allow view entries”
- or a custom-key with “public: allow view entries”  
?

Before you go into all the filter-applying just make sure you get the basic request working

> [@abernh](#):
>
> `/api/collections/get/scans?token=YOURTOKENHERE`

Once this is not giving you a `403` anymore, you should be fine with the filters as well.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abernh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/abernh/32/859_2.png) [@abernh](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/abernh)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 12:56am UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/7 "2021-07-17T00:56:15Z")

</div>

Addition … I just saw that my suggested `/get` is indeed deprecated and your initial `/entries` is the preferred way to go.

```auto
/api/collections/entries/scans?token=YOURTOKENHERE

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unenouvelleville](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/unenouvelleville/32/83_2.png) [@unenouvelleville](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/unenouvelleville)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 1:27pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/8 "2021-07-17T13:27:33Z")

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Hi,

It’s totally public, i tried with token too.

```auto
/api/collections/get/scans?token=YOURTOKENHERE (is working)
/api/collections/entries/scans?token=YOURTOKENHERE (is working)

```

Here the server for trying: [https://api.scan.100plus.be/api/collections/entries/scans?limit=10](https://api.scan.100plus.be/api/collections/entries/scans?limit=10)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abernh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/abernh/32/859_2.png) [@abernh](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/abernh)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/9 "2021-07-17T17:41:56Z")

</div>

Addition. On the remark to add/subtract a second here and there in order to make the query request exactly ‘today’ I completely missed the `gte` and `lte` filters

- `$lt` : less than
- `$lte`: less than or equal
- `$gt` : greater than
- `$gte`: greater than or equal

But back to the issue at hand - this is not a permission issue, as `Unauthorized` would be a `401`.

This is something different. I assume you are using a real MongoDb for your data and not Lite?  
I coulnd’t find any reason in the Cockpit source code to generate a `403` for using a filter with a comparison query operator when using Lite.

So maybe it is the MongoDb driver that throws an exception that in return causes the request to be interpreted as “forbidden”. It is called here

> <https://github.com/agentejo/cockpit/blob/568b0124352f6d27df359e8c19a70d2dd1961e87/lib/vendor/mongodb/mongodb/src/Operation/Find.php#L299>

Maybe that allows you to add some debug info around it.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![abernh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.getcockpit.com/abernh/32/859_2.png) [@abernh](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/u/abernh)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/api-filter-by-date/2001/10 "2021-07-17T18:14:28Z")

</div>

Given the operator works at some point it seems there is another way to filter by range:

> [@Get entries with range?](https://discourse.getcockpit.com/t/get-entries-with-range/42/4):
>
> fetch('/api/collections/get/posts?token=xxtokenxx', { method: 'post', headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }, body: JSON.stringify({ filter: { $and: [{myfield: {$gt: x}}, {myfield: {$lt: y}}] } }) }) .then(res=\>res.json()) .then(res =\> console.log(res));

This would make the query look like

```auto
/api/collections/entries/scans?filter[$and][][_created][$gte]=STARTTIME&filter[$and][][_created][$lte]=ENDTIME

```

Both variants work nicely for me in my LiteDb test setup.