Is it possible to access metadata/layers in mbtiles via mapbox gl?

Question

In a mapbox-gl map, given the source:

map.addSource('myTileSource', {
    type: "vector",
    tiles: "url to source tiles.pbf",
});

is it possible to get all the layers and/or metadata for the tiles inside that source? This is possible in node with node-mbtiles, but wondering if it is possible directly in mapbox-gl via javascript? Something like map.getLayersFromSource would be awesome.

forrert forrert · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-12T23:30:43

I'm unaware of an official API method to get the information you're looking for. However, exploring Mapbox Studio reveals that there is an HTTP endpoint that returns the desired information:

https://api.mapbox.com/v4/mapbox.mapbox-streets-v7.json?access_token=[Mapbox Token here]

This returns a description of the source, including a list of layers.

{
    "attribution": "...",
    "vector_layers": [
        {
            "id": "layer id",
            "fields": {
                "field_1": "description for field 1"
            }
        }
    ]
}

This is obviously specific to Mapbox sources and won't work for vector tiles from different sources.

Is it possible to access metadata/layers in mbtiles via mapbox gl?

1 Answers