Premise:
This question is more like "is this the correct approach?" rather then "how do I do this?"
Situation:
I have created a CherryPy REST application following this tutorial. The data are returned using the json module with a simple json.dumps. This example works. I have a mako template which I would like to use to create a HTML table with the data. Again, the template by itself works.
The question: In my head, it works this way:
The user asks for a URL
The REST API creates the JSON with the results
The mako template produces the HTML given the results
The HTML is returned to the user
My problem is, I'm not sure this is the right approach: in my (small) experience, the JSON should be returned to the client, which should render it in some way (using jQuery or some other client-side language); instead, the mako template works on the server-side, and that's where I got stuck.
Do you have any advice?
You don't need REST to solve this, this is a regular web application. Just to show you how this works by a REST service:
The user asks the REST client to do some-automated-stuff on the service
The client requests example.com/api/v1 to get the main page
The client looks for hyperlinks on the main page
The client finds hyperlink with relation=some-automated-stuff
The client follows that hyperlink and gets a JSON result from the REST API
The client uses the mako template and produces the HTML given the results
The HTML is returned to the user
A typical client is a 3rd party server side application, which is registered by the service and got a unique API key. The users allow to the clients to do some-automated-stuff on their account by giving permissions to API keys. So for example the service can be the facebook API and a client can be an application developed by Zynga e.g. Farmville. When you allow to the client to post on your news feed that you just harvested 100000 crops on your farm, then it sends a request about this to the facebook API and so some automated message will show up on your news feed.
Ofc. you can write a 1st party AJAX or server side client if you want, but if you don't want to support 3rd party clients, then it does not make much sense to develop a REST service. Ofc. your client won't break as easy as by regular applications, so it might worth the effort if that is important.
Related
Working on a project for my employer. They are searching for a solution to connect JSON to a email template.
For now, I look for a solution where the system who has the JSON, loads the JSON script on a server. Then, we connect that server with a marketing automation system, for example Marketo. We like to create an email template which loads the JSON.
The developer we found, says it is not possible and it will not work in gmail, outlook or any other client. For what I know, it is possible to create a email template with JSON right? Just to be sure, because when it is possible, our problem is not the system, but the developer.
Like to hear your thoughts on this subject. Suggestions are welcome.
So, this can be done, but you're going to need to do some custom development.
Marketo's API includes a request campaign endpoint for triggering Smart Campaigns, including those which send emails. As part of the request campaign payload, you can send {{my.token}} values for the campaign.
If you can set up some middleware between your JSON output that renders the HTML for your email, you can push that rendered HTML as a token in the campaign request, allowing for on-demand email creation based on your JSON content.
There are two caveats with this approach:
You will have to dynamically send the email using Request Campaign. That means if you need to send unique content to multiple folks, you'll be using one API call per email.
Due to the nature of Request Campaign triggers, you will not be able to batch and send using Marketo's controls; however, this should be straightforward to set up on the API side.
You can build an email using dynamic data, e.g. from an API that sends JSON.
However, you cannot send an email that calls dynamic data. The final email that gets sent must be static. That may be what your developer is getting at. Email software will strip out scripts.
have been with mvc for a little while. the usual case when an action returning json, it is initialized by ajax in the view and the view is expecting info inside the json.
is there a case the action returning json to the view and is caught by something else instead of javascript? Thanks.
Yes, a JSON API can be consumed by a large variety of clients. It can be the browser sending an AJAX request, but it can also be a desktop application fetching data from the Internet, a server-side job scraping the data for analysis, etc.
For example, let's say you're running a stock exchange website, and you're publishing current stock values as JSON. You can use that JSON on your website to display the data, but you (or any other developer) can also write a desktop application which will get that data and process it on a local machine (to, for example, show the user which stocks they should buy). Or aggregate data from different sources.
Many websites make their APIs public, so that third party developers can write alternative clients, integrate the API's functionality in their own products, and so on. For example, GitHub's APIs are public - the GitHub website can utilize them for the AJAX requests, and GitHub for Windows can show you the list of repositories you own by making a request to that API using C#'s WebClient.
I am a naive user.
There is this website which is a really important source of information for my business.
To monitor the websites, I convert them to RSS feeds using page2rss service and then monitor feeds in IFTTT.
However, this particular site does not use static web pages and generates data response to API Calls:
Here is a sample API Call:
https://www.mpeproc.gov.in/ROOTAPP/GetTenderFreeView.jsp?Department=Urban%20Administration%20and%20Development%20Department&company=MPSEDC
Is there a way by which I could record the response from this call to an html page on my server? or is there any other way to monitor such dynamic pages.
There are solutions but not simple ones. The first page uses JavaScript to create a FORM which it then submits. You can simulate this with the command line tool curl; see https://superuser.com/questions/149329/what-is-the-curl-command-line-syntax-to-do-a-post-request
But take note that many sites don't like scraping; if they notice what you're doing, you may end up on a blacklist. So it's better to ask the site's owner for permission before you aim automated tools at their precious data.
I am trying to get started with REST API calls by seeing how to format the API calls using a browser. Most examples I have found online use SDKs or just return all fields for a request.
For example, I am trying to use the Soundcloud API to view track information.
To start, I've made a simple request in the browser as follows http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/13158665.json?client_id=31a9f4a3314c219bd5c79393a8a569ec which returns a bunch of info about the track in JSON format
(e.g. {"kind":"track","id":13158665,"created_at":"2011/04/06 15:37:43 ...})
Is it possible to only to get returned the "created_at" value using the browser? I apologize if this question is basic, but I don't know what keywords to search online. Links to basic guides would be nice, although I would prefer to stay out of using a specific SDK for the time being.
In fact, it's really hard to answer such question since it depends on the Web APIs. I mean if the API supports to return only a subset of fields, you could but if not, you will receive all the content. From what I saw on the documentation, it's not possible. The filters only allow you to get a subset of elements and not control the list of returned fields within elements.
Notice that you have a great application to execute HTTP requests (and also REST) in Chrome: Postman. This allows to execute all HTTP methods and not only GET ones and controls the headers and sent content and also see what is received back.
If you use Firefox, Firebug provides a similar thing.
To finish, you could have a look at this link to find out hints about the way Web APIs work and are designed: https://templth.wordpress.com/2014/12/15/designing-a-web-api/.
Hope it helps you and I answered you question,
Thierry
Straight from the browser bar you can utilize REST endpoints that respond to a GET message. That is what you are doing when you hit that URI, you are sending an HTTP GET message to that server and it is sending back a JSON.
You are not always guaranteed a JSON, or anything when hitting a known REST endpoint. What each endpoint returns when hit with a GET is specific to how it was built. In that case, it is built to return a JSON, but some may return an HTML page. In my personal experience, most endpoints that utilize JSON returns expect you to process that object in a computer fashion and don't give you a lot of options to get a specific field of the JSON. Here is a good link on how to process JSON utilizing JavaScript.
You can utilize REST clients (such as the Advanced REST Client for Chrome) to craft HTTP POST and PUT if a specific REST endpoint has the functionality built in to receive data and do something with it. For example, a lot of wiki style REST endpoints will allow you to create a page with a specifically crafted HTTP POST with either specific header information, URI parameters or a JSON as part of it.
you can install DHC client app in your chrome and send request like put or get
I'm making a Twitter account statistics program that reads tweets, retweet counts, and favorite counts. I could attempt to read the user's Twitter account URL line by line and parse the information from there, but I was wondering if there was a public API or part of Twitter that just spits out the raw data without formatting it all pretty for web browsers? Not only would this be more efficient in the program, but would also be much neater.
It seems as though API 1.1 uses JSON to fetch data, but I need to make a developer account and create unique identifiers in order to access such data. Is it worth it? Is there some sort of alternative that would be faster and easier?
All API calls to Twitter now require OAuth authentication, so there is unfortunately no way around signing up for a developer account and creating an app. It's not even possible to use a service that makes the requests on your behalf, as this is re-syndication which is forbidden by Twitter's API terms, so you need to make the calls yourself.