through APIs, we can access structured data stored on remote servers
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Accessing Application Programming Interfaces (API)s

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live_helpGuiding questions

check_circleLearning Objectives

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API Tracker

When you have decided on an API, please make an entry in our tracker spreadsheet

listLesson sequence

  1. Discuss course plan: project design for course
  2. API Fundamentals: Donors Choose API and sample tweaking according to the specification below
  3. API Design project and worktime

Security Notes

API keys are generally considered restricted data that shouldn't shared on a public-facing repository. Keeping your API key secure can be done in a few ways:

File-storage with .gitignore

  1. Create a text file containing only your API key and store that file in a dedicated directory in your project structure, with names as stealthy as you want
  2. Tell git using the .gitignore file to never track files inside your dedicated security directory by creating a an entry in the .gitignore to match your security directory name
  3. Write a short code snippet which loads the file from your security directory and includes the value of your sensitive key in a variable which stays only in ram, and is not pushed to public git.
apikey apikey

program objective

Use data from an API service to answer one or more compelling inquiry questions of your design

program requirement 1

Engineer a python script that uses the requests library to make calls to an API of your choosing. Assemble data that is returned from that API to answer the question or set of questions you designed for this project.

program requirement 2

Once you have data assembled that speaks to your research question, format the results of your API inquiry in a format that is understandable by a non-pythonista and can be posted on our course website and on the walls of our classroom 1136! Graphs, charts, figures, tables, images--all of these are welcome and invited.

playlist_add_checkMid-week ToDOs

Complete your API project and upload it to your github account.

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