Unexpected Character thrown when trying to perform REST calls
Platform Notice: Cloud and Data Center - This article applies equally to both cloud and data center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
When trying to use REST API, you receive an Unexpected Character error message. For example, when using the follow curl command to create a new JIRA issue via REST
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curl -u admin:admin -X POST --data /home/user/data.txt -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/rest/api/2/issueYou receive the following error response
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{
"errorMessages":[
"Unexpected character ('/' (code 47)): maybe a (non-standard) comment? (not recognized as one since Feature 'ALLOW_COMMENTS' not enabled for parser)\n at [Source: org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteInputStream@49d0d945; line: 1, column: 2]"
]
}Cause
The format of the command is incorrect. In this example, the format for --data is incorrect. It should be the following
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curl -u admin:admin -X POST --data @/home/user/data.txt -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/rest/api/2/issueNote that there is an additional alias (@) before the file path. In this case, it was expecting an '@' but got a '/' instead, hence throwing the error
Resolution
Refer to Jira REST APIs and make sure the correct formatting is used
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