$expand and Lookup Fields in SharePoint 2013

When using the ListData.svc in SharePoint 2010 you were able to bring the data of the associated list item with a lookup field in your primary list just by including the field name in the URL query string using the $expand option.  For example, if I had a list called Purchase Orders and that list had a lookup field called Customer I could bring all the associated data with the selected customer like address and other contact details. But as I found out on MSDN the SharePoint 2013 REST API does not support bulk expansion. Instead you have to specify the fields you want to be brought back from the lookup list in both the $select and the $expand options of the query string. If I had a Test List in SharePoint 2010 and wanted to access the values of the list item in the lookup called Status, I could simply append ?$expand=Status to the URL.  In 2013, though, I also have to include the select option like this:

?$select=Status/Title&$expand=Status/Title

And if I wanted to add additional fields I would do so in a comma separated list.

?$select=Status/Title,Status/Created&$expand=Status/Title,Status/Created

Here is a screen shot of my Test List and the example JSON output of  a GET request sent with the query string of the first example above.

sharepoint.png 

{
    "d": {
        "results": [
            {
                "__metadata": {
                    "id": "1594d355-36e6-4ddd-a797-54db125766df",
                    "uri": "https://domain.com/_api/Web/Lists(guid'1594d355-36e6-4ddd-a797-54db125766df')/Items(2)",
                    "etag": "\"1\"",
                    "type": "SP.Data.Test_x0020_ListListItem"
                },
                "Status": {
                    "__metadata": {
                        "id": "270e53c1-3be0-44f4-9e46-4915cb9a52c6",
                        "type": "SP.Data.StatusesListItem"
                    },
                    "Title": "Development"
                },
                "Title": "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dol",
                "StatusId": 3
            }
        ]
    }
}