Retrieve Data from a Data Extension

Use the retrieve method to get data from a data extension. You can retrieve up to 2,500 records per request.

Keep these considerations in mind when you use SOAP API to retrieve data from data extensions.

• If you issue one or fewer calls per hour, you can achieve better performance and efficiency by using a data extract activity to deliver the data to your Enhanced FTP location.
• The data extension object doesn’t support LIKE operators in filters for the retrieve method.
• When you retrieve a column that contains the Date data type, SOAP API returns a value that’s rounded to the nearest second, followed by AM or PM. This behavior occurs even when the source timestamp contains millisecond data. As a result, if you use a Date column as a primary key, it can prevent you from retrieving unique rows. For this reason, we recommend against using Date values as primary keys.

This sample SOAP envelope represents a request to retrieve several fields from a data extension based on the value of the MemberId column.

If the information from the request is found in the data extension, the response contains that information.