Adding a REST API GET response (JSON array containing individual GeoJSON features) as a new vector layer in QGIS

Question

I'm trying to add a new vector layer in QGIS from a REST API endpoint. This endpoint actually returns a JSON array containing individual GeoJSON features, e.g.: https://api.sharedmobility.ch/v1/sharedmobility/identify?filters=ch.bfe.sharedmobility.provider.id=donkey_ge&offset=0&geometryFormat=geojson

but QGIS says that this is not a valid data source when I try to load it using the "Protocol: HTTP(S) , cloud, etc..." Source Type in the Data Source Manager.

I know I had this same problem some time ago, but it seems that the provided solution is not working with this particular API.

Do you know how I can load that type of data into QGIS (3.26)?

API doc: https://api.sharedmobility.ch/documentation

Answer 1

The endpoint of your API is sending an array of Geojson Feature Objects, while QGIS needs a FeatureCollection which is a container of multiple Feature Objects. See this pastebin which already converted your data as a FeatureCollection. You can add it as a Protocol Layer to QGIS.

The best way to solve the problem would be to ask the maintainer of the API to return the data as a FeatureCollection additionally. Another way would be to proxy and transform the data through some custom service on the fly.

Here is some sample code how I created the pastebin using NodeJs and the awesome TurfJS library. If you use a proxy as a generic solution, an ExpressJS service using TurfJS could be one solution.

const { featureCollection } = require("@turf/helpers");
const data = require("./data.json");
const fs = require("fs");

const fc = featureCollection(data);
fs.writeFileSync("./fc.json", JSON.stringify(fc));