Outcome 7 - HTTP and Web Services

Day 2 : Outcome 7 - HTTP and Web Services

This assignment facilitates a developer to gain knowledge on HTTP request cycle. It also provides a platform for a developer to learn about the use of APIs

The Solution

The structure of the solution:

    lib
      +
      +--+lib.py
      +--+__init__.py
      +
    university_search.py

lib.py contains the functions to connect to an API and print the response to the console

university_search.py forms entry point of the program and creates an instance of lib.py . Thelib.get_universties_list function to get data from the internet while the lib.padded_print function displays the information on the console

THE API : http://universities.hipolabs.com

---

The API provides information on universities names and internet domains. The response may be filtered based on partial university name and/or country .

The API provides one URL endpoint /search for accessing the resource .

The response is filtered by sending name and/or country as HTTP GET queries to the endpoint. The API response is a JSON file containing a list of a university data . Homepage located at http://universities.hipolabs.com.

sample query

• http://universities.hipolabs.com/search?name=middle&country=Turkey : get universities with partial name middle and located in Turkey

• http://universities.hipolabs.com/search?country=Kenya : get all universities and located in Kenya

sample response

[
    {
        "alpha_two_code": "TR",
        "country": "Turkey",
        "domain": "sabanciuniv.edu.tr",
        "name": "Sabanci University",
        "web_page": "http://www.sabanciuniv.edu.tr/"
    },
    ...
]

Usage

The program requires the requests package

python university_search.py university_name [country] 

The script expects a full/partial name and an optional country to display the information to the console Note: Running the script without any arguments defaults to hard coded parameters: Country = Kenya and an empty University Name

sample output