title: API: Retrieve parsed metadata and content of an existing zettel in various encodings
role: manual
tags: #api #manual #zettelstore
syntax: zmk
back: 00001006000000 00001012000000
backward: 00001006000000 00001012000000 00001012920500
box-number: 1
copyright: (c) 2020-present by Detlef Stern <ds@zettelstore.de>
created: 20210126175322
forward: 00001006050000 00001010040100 00001012050200 00001012053500 00001012920000 00001012920500 00001012920800
lang: en
license: EUPL-1.2-or-later
modified: 20251215173358
published: 20251215173358
visibility: public

The [endpoint](00001012920000) to work with parsed metadata and content of a specific zettel is `/z/{ID}`, where `{ID}` is a placeholder for the [zettel identifier](00001006050000).

A *parsed* zettel is basically an [unevaluated](00001012053500) zettel: the zettel is read and analyzed, but its content is not *evaluated*.
By using this endpoint, you are able to retrieve the structure of a zettel before it is evaluated.

For example, to retrieve some data about this zettel you are currently viewing, just send an HTTP GET request to the endpoint `/z/00001012053600` with the query parameter `parseonly` (and other appropriate query parameter).
For example:

    # curl 'http://127.0.0.1:23123/z/00001012053600?enc=sz&parseonly'
    (BLOCK (PARA (TEXT "The ") (LINK-ZETTEL () "00001012920000" (TEXT "endpoint")) (TEXT " to work with parsed metadata and content of a specific zettel is ") (LITERAL-INPUT () "/z/{ID}") (TEXT ", where ") ...

Similar to [retrieving an encoded zettel](00001012053500), you can specify an [encoding](00001012920500) and state which [part](00001012920800) of a zettel you are interested in.
The same default values applies to this endpoint.

# HTTP Status codes