Community Data Science Workshops (Spring 2014)/Saturday May 3rd lecture: Difference between revisions
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== Lecture Outline ==
# Introduction to APIs
#** way to ask for data (almost always a URL)
#** way to get data back (almost always in a format called JSON)
#** every API is different, and documented
#* to use APIs to build a dataset we will need:
#** all our tools from last session: variables, etc
#** the ability to open urls on the web
#** the ability to create custom URLS
#** the ability to save to files
#** the ability to understand (i.e., parse) JSON data that APIs usually give us
# Review material from last session
#* variables
#* printing▼
#* if statements▼
#* lists
#* dictionaries
▲#* if statements
#* for loops
▲#* printing
#* modules
# New programming concepts:
#* open a file and write to it▼
#* interpolate variables into a string using % and %()s▼
#* urllib2 and urlopen
▲#* interpolate variables into a string using % and %()s
▲#* definition of an API in general
▲#* definition of web API for data
# [http://placekitten.com/ placekitten.com]
#* API that takes specially crafted URLs and gives appropriately sized picture of kittens
#* example of placekitten in browser
#** visit the API documentation
#** kittens of different sizes
#** kittens in greyscale or color
#* show how to use place
#* write a small program to grab arbitrary square from placekitten by asking for the size on standard in
# JSON file (JavaScript Object Notation)
#* what is json: useful for more structure data
#* import json; json.loads()
#* like Python (except no single quotes)
#* simple lists, dictionaries
#* can reflect more complicated data structures
#* Example file at http://mako.cc/cdsw.json
#* download it and parse it
# Other APIs
#* every API is different, so read the documentation!
#* for popular APIs, there are python modules that help you make requests and parse json!
#* rate limiting
#* authenticaiton
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Latest revision as of 22:04, 15 March 2015
Lecture Outline
- Introduction to APIs
- definition of API: just an interface for programs
- definition of web API
- way to ask for data (almost always a URL)
- way to get data back (almost always in a format called JSON)
- every API is different, and documented
- to use APIs to build a dataset we will need:
- all our tools from last session: variables, etc
- the ability to open urls on the web
- the ability to create custom URLS
- the ability to save to files
- the ability to understand (i.e., parse) JSON data that APIs usually give us
- Review material from last session
- variables
- lists
- dictionaries
- if statements
- for loops
- printing
- modules
- New programming concepts:
- urllib2 and urlopen
- interpolate variables into a string using % and %()s
- open files and write to them
- placekitten.com
- API that takes specially crafted URLs and gives appropriately sized picture of kittens
- example of placekitten in browser
- visit the API documentation
- kittens of different sizes
- kittens in greyscale or color
- show how to use place
- write a small program to grab arbitrary square from placekitten by asking for the size on standard in
- JSON file (JavaScript Object Notation)
- what is json: useful for more structure data
- import json; json.loads()
- like Python (except no single quotes)
- simple lists, dictionaries
- can reflect more complicated data structures
- Example file at http://mako.cc/cdsw.json
- download it and parse it
- Other APIs
- every API is different, so read the documentation!
- for popular APIs, there are python modules that help you make requests and parse json!
- rate limiting
- authenticaiton
- text encoding issues