SharePoint: Update List Content Type via REST from SPFx web part

Task

I needed to set ReadOnly property of a SPList Content Type from my SPFx web part. I’m using @pnp/sp library, but it doesn’t support modifying existing Content Types.

Solution

Changing the ReadOnly property of an existing list content type is possible using REST, but I had some troubles finding out correct set of HTTP body and header payloads. Working code can be found below.

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const spOpts: ISPHttpClientOptions = { headers: { 'Accept': 'application/json;odata=verbose', 'X-HTTP-Method': 'MERGE', 'odata-version': '3.0' }, body: JSON.stringify({ __metadata: { type: 'SP.ContentType' }, ReadOnly: false }) }; let oldCt: ContentType = list.contentTypes.getById('0x01CONTENTTYPEID'); await this.props.context.spHttpClient.post( oldCt.toUrlAndQuery(), SPHttpClient.configurations.v1, spOpts );

Thoughts For later reference when investigating similar issues, here’s a collection of error messages depending what Header parameter is missing or invalid. Without this header property You got error 'Accept': 'application/json;odata=verbose' The property '__metadata' does not exist on type 'SP.ContentType'. Make sure to only use property names that are defined by the type. Note: This is not required, as odata will be verbose by default unless you have manually set it to, e.g., nometadata. I usually set it to nometadata to improve performance as verbose metadata results of REST calls are not usually required. odata=minimalmetadata is not enough. 'X-HTTP-Method': 'MERGE' The parameter __metadata does not exist in method GetById. 'odata-version': ‘3.0’ Parsing JSON Light feeds or entries in requests without entity set is not supported. Pass in the entity set as a parameter to ODataMessageReader.CreateODataEntryReader or ODataMessageReader.CreateODataFeedReader method. Note: By default, odata-version will be 4.0, and it doesn’t work here.