How to edit a github issue using the API (curl)? (especially: close) - api

Question

I'm planning to migrate a couple hundred bugs tracked in another (home-rolled) system into GitHub's issue system. Most of these bugs were closed in the past. I can use github's API to create an issue, e.g.
curl -u $GITHUB_TOKEN:x-oauth-basic https://api.github.com/repos/my_organization/my_repo/issues -d '{
"title": "test",
"body": "the body"
}'
... however, this will leave me with a bunch of open issues. How to close those? I've tried just closing at the time of creation, e.g.:
curl -u $GITHUB_TOKEN:x-oauth-basic https://api.github.com/repos/my_organization/my_repo/issues -d '{
"title": "test",
"body": "the body",
"state": "closed"
}'
... but the result is to create an open issue (i.e. the "state" is ignored).
It looks to me like I should be able to "edit" an issue to close it (https://developer.github.com/v3/issues/#edit-an-issue) ... but I'm unable to figure out what the corresponding curl command is supposed to look like. Any guidance?
Extra credit: I'd really like to be able to assign a "closed" date, to agree with the actual closed date captured in our current system. It's not clear that this is possible.
Thanks!

Answer 1

migrating a bunch of issues to github with the command line? are you crazy?
anyway, using php and hhb_curl from https://github.com/divinity76/hhb_.inc.php/blob/master/hhb_.inc.php ,
this worked for me, unfortunately couldn't set the "closed_at" date (it was ignored by the api), but i could emulate it using labels, then it looked like
, the code should give you something to work on when porting it to command line:
<?php
declare(strict_types = 1);
require_once ('hhb_.inc.php');
$hc=new hhb_curl();
define('BASE_URL','https://api.github.com');
$hc->_setComfortableOptions();
$data=array(
'state'=>'closed',
'closed_at'=> '2011-04-22T13:33:48Z',// << unfortunately, ignored
'labels'=>array(
'closed at 2011-04-22T13:33:48Z' // << we can fake it using labels...
)
);
$data=json_encode($data);
$hc->setopt_array(array(
CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST=>'PATCH',
// /repos/:owner/:repo/issues/:number
// https://github.com/divinity76/GitHubCrashTest/issues/1
CURLOPT_URL=>BASE_URL.'/repos/divinity76/GitHubCrashTest/issues/1',
CURLOPT_USERAGENT=>'test',
CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER=>array(
'Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json',
'Content-Type: application/json',
'Authorization: token <removed>'
),
CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS=>$data,
));
$hc->exec();
hhb_var_dump($hc->getStdErr(),$hc->getResponseBody());
(i modified the "Authorization: token" line before posting it on stackoverflow ofc)

Answer 2

As suggested by hanshenrik, the correct altered curl command is:
curl -u $GITHUB_TOKEN:x-oauth-basic https://api.github.com/repos/my_organization/my_repo/issues/5 -d '{
"state": "closed"
}'
I'd failed to understand the documentation referenced in his answer:
/repos/:owner/:repo/issues/:number
translates to
https://api.github.com/repos/my_organization/my_repo/issues/5
(I now understand that fields starting with ":" are variables)
For the record, I'm planning to script the calls to curl. :)