Changes API

Simple API to react on resource changes

Changes API is prone to race conditions.

Please review Possible Race Condition section. It outlines scenarios that could lead to event loss and suggests potential solutions to mitigate this risk.

Changes API can be used to get changes of resourceType or specific resource by versions. Each event (creating, updating, deleting) will increase version of the resource by 1.

Polling request is cheap! If you want to watch rare changes (minutes-hours), this API is very resource efficient (no subscriptions, no queues) and provides you lots of control. If nothing has been changed, you will get a response with status 304, otherwise Changes API will response with a list of changes and a new version to poll next time.

Endpoints

GET /<resourceType>/$changes — returns the latest version for the resourceType.

GET /<resourceType>/$changes?<parameters>— depending on parameters returns changes of the resourceType.

GET /<resourceType>/<id>/$changes — returns latest version of a specific resource.

GET /<resourceType>/<id>/$changes?<parameters>— depending on parameters returns changes of the specific resource.

Query-string parameters

Below are parameters to use in both resourceType and specific resource endpoints.

Parameter	Meaning
version=<version>	Returns changes since the specified version
version=<lower-version>,<upper-version>	Returns changes after the lower-version (exclusive) up to theupper-version (inclusive)
fhir=<boolean>	If set to true converts changes.*.resource to the FHIR format (note: since Changes API is not /fhir/ endpoint, the rest of the body isn't FHIR compliant)
omit-resources=<boolean>	If set to true omits resources leaving only id & resourceType fields
_count & _page	Work as described here
_total & _totalMethod	Work as described here

With parameters which start with dot you can filter resources by equality, e.g. .name.0.family=<string>

Example

Get the latest version of the Patient resource.

GET /Patient/$changes
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 1

Assume the latest version is 1, no changes since version 1.

GET /Patient/$changes?version=1
Accept: text/yaml

# status 304 (Not Modified)

Let's add 2 patients to change version of Patient resource.

POST /Patient
Accept: text/yaml
Content-Type: text/yaml

id: pt-1
name:
- family: Smith
  given: [John]

POST /Patient
Accept: text/yaml
Content-Type: text/yaml

id: pt-2
name:
- family: Wood
  given: [Amanda]-a

Since version 1, two events happened: created 2 patients.

GET /Patient/$changes?version=1
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 3
changes:
- event: created
  resource:
    id: pt-1
    name:
    - family: Smith
      given: [John]
- event: created
  resource:
    id: pt-2
    name:
    - family: Wood
      given: [Amanda]

We can filter events by dot expressions. Filtering Patient events by family name:

GET /Patient/$changes?version=1&.name.0.family=Wood
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 3
changes:
- event: created
  resource:
    id: pt-2
    name:
    - family: Wood
      given: [Amanda]

Check changes happened since version 1 until version 2.

GET /Patient/$changes?version=1,2
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 2
changes:
- event: created
  resource:
    id: pt-1
    name:
    - family: Smith
      given: [John]

Check version of patient with id pt-1.

GET /Patient/pt-1/$changes
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 2

GET /Patient/pt-1/$changes?version=1
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 2
changes:
- event: created
  resource:
    id: pt-1
    name:
    - family: Smith
      given: [John]

Use omit-resources=true to request only id and resourceType fields in resources.

GET /Patient/$changes?version=1&omit-resources=true
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 3
changes:
- event: created
  resource: {id: pt-1, resourceType: Patient}
- event: created
  resource: {id: pt-2, resourceType: Patient}

Cache performance

Changes API uses a cache to track a resourceType last change. To build the cache it runs a query to get the max value of the txid column. To make this operation efficient, it is recommended to build an index on the txid column for tables where Changes API will be used.

Use query:

CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS <resourceType>_txid_btree ON <resourceType> using btree(txid);

CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS <resourceType>_history_txid_btree ON <resourceType>_history using btree(txid);

Replace <resourceType> with table name, for example:

CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS patient_txid_btree ON patient using btree(txid);

CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS patient_history_txid_btree ON patient_history using btree(txid);

Possible Race Condition

Consider a scenario where we have two database transactions: transaction-1, which creates patient-1, and transaction-2, which creates patient-2. These transactions are initiated almost simultaneously.

In this scenario, let's assume transaction-1 starts first, retrieving the value 99 from a database sequence object for txid. Transaction-2 then starts and retrieves the next sequence value, 100, for its txid. Although transaction-1 started earlier, both transactions are processed concurrently in the database, which may result in transaction-2 being committed before transaction-1.

If the $changes API is called after transaction-2 has been committed but before transaction-1 has been committed, the response will look like this:

GET /Patient/$changes?version=98&omit-resources=true
Accept: text/yaml

# status 200
version: 100
changes:
- event: created
  resource: {id: patient-2, resourceType: Patient}

In this case, the application will likely start its next iteration from getting the changes starting with version 100, causing version 99 to be missed. If the missing a single event is crucial for your situation, the potential solutions could be:

1. Periodically re-read all changes to ensure no events have been missed.

2. Implement the solution based on Aidbox topic-based subscriptions which can provide you at-least-once delivery guaranties.