How to work with Functions using the REST API

Use the /functions endpoint to work with functions.

Method	Description	Endpoint
GET	Retrieve a list of functions	/functions
GET	Retrieve metadata of a specific function	/functions/catalog.schema.function
POST	Create a new function	/functions
DELETE	Remove a function	/functions/catalog.schema.function

The following sections show how to use each of these methods. Examples are demonstrated using Python and the requests library.

Unity Catalog server

The examples assume a local Unity Catalog server running at the default location http://localhost:8080. Update the BASE_URL if your server is running somewhere else.

How to list functions

Use the GET command and the /functions endpoint to get a list of all registered functions. You will need to supply the catalog and schema names.

BASE_URL = "http://localhost:8080/api/2.1/unity-catalog"
ENDPOINT = "/functions"
URL = f"{BASE_URL}{ENDPOINT}"

params = {
  "catalog_name": "unity",
  "schema_name": "default"
}

response = requests.get(URL, params=params)
response.json()

How to get function metadata

To retrieve metadata about a specific function, use the GET command at the /functions/<full-function-name> endpoint. The full name means the 3-level namespace reference in the standard Unity Catalog format: catalog.schema.function.

For example:

BASE_URL = "http://localhost:8080/api/2.1/unity-catalog"
ENDPOINT = "/functions/unity.default.lowercase"
URL = f"{BASE_URL}{ENDPOINT}"

response = requests.get(URL, headers=headers)
response.json()

This will return all available metadata for the specified function:

{'name': 'lowercase',
'catalog_name': 'unity',
'schema_name': 'default',
'input_params': {'parameters': [{'name': 's',
  'type_text': 'string',
  'type_json': '{"name":"s","type":"string","nullable":false,"metadata":{}}',
  'type_name': 'STRING',
  'type_precision': None,
  'type_scale': None,
  'type_interval_type': None,
  'position': 0,
  'parameter_mode': 'IN',
  'parameter_type': 'PARAM',
  'parameter_default': None,
  'comment': None}]},
'data_type': 'STRING',
'full_data_type': 'STRING',
'return_params': None,
'routine_body': 'EXTERNAL',
'routine_definition': 'g = s.lower()\nreturn g',
'routine_dependencies': None,
'parameter_style': 'S',
'is_deterministic': True,
'sql_data_access': 'NO_SQL',
'is_null_call': False,
'security_type': 'DEFINER',
'specific_name': 'lowercase',
'comment': 'Converts a string to lowercase.',
'properties': None,
'full_name': 'unity.default.lowercase',
'owner': None,
'created_at': 1721234405640,
'created_by': None,
'updated_at': None,
'updated_by': None,
'function_id': 'ebb706d6-7ba0-4b2e-8d9c-716d13fd57f8',
'external_language': 'python'}

How to delete a function

Use the DELETE command at the /functions/<full-function-name> endpoint to delete a specific function. The full name is the 3-level namespace reference to your function: catalog.schema.function. For example:

BASE_URL = "http://localhost:8080/api/2.1/unity-catalog"
ENDPOINT = "/functions/unity.default.lowercase"
URL = f"{BASE_URL}{ENDPOINT}"

response = requests.delete(URL)