Switching to GitLab API v4

GitLab provides a new API version (v4) since its 9.0 release. python-gitlab provides support for this new version, but the python API has been modified to solve some problems with the existing one.

GitLab will stop supporting the v3 API soon, and you should consider switching to v4 if you use a recent version of GitLab (>= 9.0), or if you use http://gitlab.com.

Using the v4 API

python-gitlab uses the v4 API by default since the 1.3.0 release. To use the old v3 API, explicitly define api_version in the Gitlab constructor:

gl = gitlab.Gitlab(..., api_version=3)

If you use the configuration file, also explicitly define the version:

[my_gitlab]
...
api_version = 3

Changes between v3 and v4 API

For a list of GitLab (upstream) API changes, see https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/api/v3_to_v4.html.

The python-gitlab API reflects these changes. But also consider the following important changes in the python API:

  • managers and objects don’t inherit from GitlabObject and BaseManager anymore. They inherit from RESTManager and RESTObject.

  • You should only use the managers to perform CRUD operations.

    The following v3 code:

    gl = gitlab.Gitlab(...)
p = Project(gl, project_id)

    Should be replaced with:

    gl = gitlab.Gitlab(...)
p = gl.projects.get(project_id)

  • Listing methods (manager.list() for instance) can now return generators (RESTObjectList). They handle the calls to the API when needed to fetch new items.

    By default you will still get lists. To get generators use as_list=False:

    all_projects_g = gl.projects.list(as_list=False)

  • The “nested” managers (for instance gl.project_issues or gl.group_members) are not available anymore. Their goal was to provide a direct way to manage nested objects, and to limit the number of needed API calls.

    To limit the number of API calls, you can now use get() methods with the lazy=True parameter. This creates shallow objects that provide usual managers.

    The following v3 code:

    issues = gl.project_issues.list(project_id=project_id)

    Should be replaced with:

    issues = gl.projects.get(project_id, lazy=True).issues.list()

    This will make only one API call, instead of two if lazy is not used.

  • The following Gitlab methods should not be used anymore for v4:

    • list()
    • get()
    • create()
    • update()
    • delete()

  • If you need to perform HTTP requests to the GitLab server (which you shouldn’t), you can use the following Gitlab methods: