support a new API for stat info without file content？

[rowthan]

[coddingtonbear]

I believe this exists via setting the Accept header to application/vnd.olrapi.note+json? You can see more in the online docs around each of the GET APIs,

[rowthan]

it works but response the content still. i dont think it is good in same case.
such as checking the file whether exist or get the meta info of the file.
maybe its a waste.

[coddingtonbear]

I believe you’re mistaken! If you send that Accept header, you will receive only the metadata, no?

[rowthan]

I think I have not made myself understood.
what i want is that don't response the content! because i just want get the meta info, i don't care what the content is.
The usage scenario is that i want to quickly obtain the original information of all files to decide whether they need to be updated depend on ctime or utime

now you have response all infos both metadata and content. i think it's a waste.

so I suggest create a new api just for retrieving meta info for single file even list of files.

[rowthan]

don't response this field.

[coddingtonbear]

Oh, you're right -- we do send the file content in the metadata! I'd be very interested in seeing some numbers around how much such a change would impact performance -- files in folks' vaults are in general very small in the context of file sizes on the internet. For example, the median and average file sizes in my vault are just 566 bytes and 1076 bytes respectively. Additionally, this is a local API, so these files don't even need to cross a network. I'd guess that the transmission cost would be dwarfed by other overhead involved in processing the request.

If it did turn out that we were able to prove that such a change wouldn't be a premature optimization: I'm not sure I'm willing to support an entirely new API for sending a metadata response without that content, but I'd consider a PR that added a new Accept header option that excluded that content field. If you're looking for insight into how you might do that; you'd need to do a couple things:

1. Add a new Accept header option here:
2. Add a new conditional block here that checked for the new header and returned only the metadata without content:

   obsidian-local-rest-api/src/requestHandler.ts

   Line 236 in adfab3d

   if (req.headers.accept === ContentTypes.olrapiNoteJson) {

   -- you'll probably want to update getFileMetadataObject such that it can conditionally return the metadata object with content so that.
3. Update docs to describe that Accept header's purpose

Hope this helps!