Why can't my value pass through JSON to SHarepoint list?

Question

With the follwing code, I am trying to update a list. Title succesfully passes but PerOrBus does not.

<script>
    $('#submitdata').click(function(){

    var itemProperties = {
        '__metadata': { "type": "SP.List" },
        Title: $("#firstName").val(),
        PerOrBus: "Yes"

    };



    $.ajax({
         url: _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('ChangeOfAddressList')/items",
        type: "POST",
        contentType: "application/json;odata=verbose",
        data: JSON.stringify(itemProperties),
        headers: {
            "Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
            "X-RequestDigest": $("#__REQUESTDIGEST").val()
        },
        success: function (data) {
            console.log(JSON.stringify(data.d));
        },
        error: function (data) {
            console.log(data.responseText);
        }
    });
});


</script> 

I get this error on the debugger:

"value":"The property 'PerOrBus' does not exist on type 'SP.List'. Make sure to only use property names that are defined by the type."

Why would it update Title and not PerOrBus? PerOrBus is a checkbox so I've tried doing PerOrBus:"False" as well as making it true and null but none of them worked.
Any Ideas? Thanks

Answer 1

Two things:

1. Your metadata type is wrong. It should be SP.Data.ChangeOfAddressListListItem. The format is SP.Data.(list name)ListItem or SP.Data.(library name)Item when adding or updating an item.
2. You are missing some headers. A POST request signals an add but you want to do an update. To tell SharePoint that you really want to do an update you need to send the X-Http-Method header with a value of MERGE or PATCH. You should also send an IF-MATCH header to tell SharePoint how to do concurrency checking. I'm not sure if this header is optional or not. Finally, you should add a Content-Type header to tell SharePoint the schema of the message body.

Here is the code with these changes applied.

<script>
    $('#submitdata').click(function(){

    var itemProperties = {
        '__metadata': { "type": "SP.Data.ChangeOfAddressListListItem" },
        Title: $("#firstName").val(),
        PerOrBus: "Yes"

    };



    $.ajax({
         url: _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('ChangeOfAddressList')/items",
        type: "POST",
        contentType: "application/json;odata=verbose",
        data: JSON.stringify(itemProperties),
        headers: {
            "Accept": "application/json;odata=verbose",
            "Content-Type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
            "X-RequestDigest": $("#__REQUESTDIGEST").val(),
            "IF-MATCH": "*",
            "X-Http-Method": "PATCH"
        },
        success: function (data) {
            console.log(JSON.stringify(data.d));
        },
        error: function (data) {
            console.log(data.responseText);
        }
    });
});


</script> 

Here's a working example from one of my conference talks:

function updateItem() {
    UpdateFormDigest(_spPageContextInfo.webServerRelativeUrl, _spFormDigestRefreshInterval)

    var call = jQuery.ajax({
        url: _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl + "/_api/Web/Lists/getByTitle('Tasks')/Items/?$top=1",
        type: "GET",
        dataType: "json",
        headers: {
            Accept: "application/json;odata=verbose"
        }
    });
    call.done(function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
        var items = data.d.results;
        if (items.length > 0) {
            var item = items[0];
            updateItem(item);
        }
    });
    call.fail(failHandler);

    function updateItem(item) {
        var call = jQuery.ajax({
            url: _spPageContextInfo.webAbsoluteUrl +
                "/_api/Web/Lists/getByTitle('Tasks')/Items(" +
                item.Id + ")",
            type: "POST",
            data: JSON.stringify({
                "__metadata": { type: "SP.Data.TasksListItem" },
                Status: "In Progress",
                PercentComplete: 0.10
            }),
            headers: {
                Accept: "application/json;odata=verbose",
                "Content-Type": "application/json;odata=verbose",
                "X-RequestDigest": jQuery("#__REQUESTDIGEST").val(),
                "IF-MATCH": item.__metadata.etag,
                "X-Http-Method": "PATCH"
            }
        });
        call.done(function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
            var div = jQuery("#message");
            div.text("Item updated");
        });
        call.fail(failHandler);
    }
}

You can download the slide deck and the samples for the talk from http://ow.ly/4mRlUc