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| == Lecture Outline ==
| | #redirect [[Community Data Science Workshops (Spring 2015)/Day 2 Lecture]] |
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| # Introduction to APIs | |
| #* definition of API: just an interface for programs
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| #* definition of web API
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| #** way to ask for data (almost always a URL)
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| #** way to get data back (almost always in a format called JSON)
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| #** every API is different, and documented
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| #* to use APIs to build a dataset we will need:
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| #** all our tools from last session: variables, etc
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| #** the ability to open urls on the web
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| #** the ability to create custom URLS
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| #** the ability to save to files
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| #** the ability to understand (i.e., parse) JSON data that APIs usually give us
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| # Review material from last session
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| #* variables
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| #* lists
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| #* dictionaries
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| #* if statements
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| #* for loops
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| #* printing
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| #* modules
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| # New programming concepts:
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| #* Using [http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/ requests] to access files on the internet
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| #* interpolate variables into a string using % and %()s
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| #* open files and write to them
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| # [http://placebear.com/ placebear.com]
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| #* API that takes specially crafted URLs and gives appropriately sized picture of bears
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| #* example of placebear in browser
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| #** visit the API documentation
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| #** bears of different sizes
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| #** bears in greyscale or color
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| #** bears not your thing? Try [http://placekitten.com/ placekitten] instead!
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| #* show how to use place
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| #* write a small program to grab arbitrary square from placekitten by asking for the size on standard in
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| # JSON file (JavaScript Object Notation)
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| #* what is json: useful for more structure data
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| #* import json; json.loads()
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| #* like Python (except no single quotes)
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| #* simple lists, dictionaries
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| #* can reflect more complicated data structures
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| #* Example file at http://mako.cc/cdsw.json
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| #* download it and parse it
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| # Other APIs
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| #* every API is different, so read the documentation!
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| #* for popular APIs, there are python modules that help you make requests and parse json!
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| #* rate limiting
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| #* authenticaiton
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| #* text encoding issues
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