# Extend API to retrieve plain JSON

**URL:** <https://forum.getodk.org/t/extend-api-to-retrieve-plain-json/32204>\
**Category:** Ideas\
**Tags:** odk-central\
**Created:** [January 27, 2021, 11:54am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/extend-api-to-retrieve-plain-json/32204 "2021-01-27T11:54:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Matthew\_White](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/matthew_white/32/1654_2.png) [@Matthew\_White](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Matthew_White)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 7:16pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/extend-api-to-retrieve-plain-json/32204/6 "2021-01-27T19:16:51Z")

</div>

That makes sense, and actually I think OData supports `$expand=*` to expand all tables. You can find some of the implementation for the OData endpoint in `lib/data/json.js`. That file parses the submission XML and formats the data values. I think the next step would probably be to see what changes would be needed to `lib/data/json.js` to support `$expand`. It might also be worth considering just adding support for `$expand=*` for the root table if that would be significantly easier than a more general implementation of `$expand`.

---

_[View the full topic](https://forum.getodk.org/t/extend-api-to-retrieve-plain-json/32204)._