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This update allows for a more granular and streamlined way to request and manage your data collections, facilitating more effective dataset generation according to your specific needs. Understanding When to Use Each API:

Initial Collection Without Customer-Defined View:

The 3 primary API endpoints serve distinct purposes in the data collection workflow, facilitating a structured and efficient process in obtaining tailored datasets.

Requesting a Collection:

Endpoint: POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/request_collection Parameters:
string
required
Dataset ID
string
required
discover_new OR url_collection
array
Array - json
multipart
multipart - csv
Example
Processing may take several minutes, based on the number of inputs. When you request to discover (‘discover_new’), finding all links (PDPs) may take time.

Checking Status of the Collection Above:

Endpoint: GET https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/request_collection Parameters:
string
required
Obtain from the previous API.
string
required
Sets data freshness.If data is within this period (e.g., req ested 1 wee , collected 5 days ago), 0 new scrape occurs. If data is not fresh, we scrape it now.
  • 1 week: 604,800,000 ms
  • 1 month: 2,592,000,000 ms
Example
Response Indicating Nmber of Records and Freshness Found:
The request is still running:
Issue with one (or more) inputs: in this case the url was sent as URL

Initiating a Collection:

Endpoint: POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/initiate_collection Parameters:
string
required
The unique identifier for the collection request you are inquiring about.
string
required
The time in milliseconds indicating the desired data freshness.
string
required
The time in milliseconds indicating the desired data freshness.
Example

Collection After Defining a View:


Initiating a Collection:

Endpoint: POST https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/initiate Parameters:
string
required
string
required
string
required
discover_new OR url_collection
array
Array - json
multipart
multipart - csv
Example
Dataset will be delivered to the setting configured for this view. By leveraging these enhanced capabilities, users can now tailor their data collection processes more efficiently, ensuring that the datasets generated are aligned with their project requirements.

How to retrieve results of snapshot that was already collected