how to access external API

Alex Glaros

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Sep 30, 2015, 2:29:47 PM9/30/15

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Am new to APIs.

How do I access this API and get data to w2p vars?

http://ipinfo.io/developers

Goal is read user's IP address to determine what country/city they are in.

Thanks,

Alex Glaros

Leonel Câmara

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Sep 30, 2015, 3:14:26 PM9/30/15

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I haven't tried it but, this should work and it's a simple enough example

# In the default controller

def locateme():
    import json
    from gluon.tools import fetch
    location_data = json.loads(fetch('http://ipinfo.io/%s/json' % request.client))
    return location_data

# In the view default/locateme.html

{{extend 'layout.html'}}


<dl>
  <dt>City</dt>
  <dd>{{=city}}</dd>
  <dt>Region</dt>
  <dd>{{=region}}</dd>
  <dt>Country</dt>
  <dd>{{=country}}</dd>
</dl>

Then you'll probably need to add some checking for cases where the API doesn't return a city/region/country

Alex Glaros

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Sep 30, 2015, 3:59:05 PM9/30/15

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Leonel, this string works from a browser (http://ipinfo.io/8.8.8.8/json) so your sample is very close to working, but am getting an error. Also, is word supposed to be "load" or "loads" or doesn't matter?

<class 'urllib2.URLError'> <urlopen error [Errno 10061] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it>

Version

web2py™	Version 2.12.2-stable+timestamp.2015.08.09.14.29.44
Python	Python 2.7.9: C:\alex\alt_web2py\web2py\web2py.exe (prefix: C:\Python27)

Traceback

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Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\alex\alt_web2py\web2py\gluon\restricted.py", line 227, in restricted
    exec ccode in environment
  File "C:/alex/alt_web2py/web2py/applications/ES1/controllers/default.py", line 5824, in <module>
  File "C:\alex\alt_web2py\web2py\gluon\globals.py", line 412, in <lambda>
    self._caller = lambda f: f()
  File "C:\alex\alt_web2py\web2py\gluon\tools.py", line 3769, in f
    return action(*a, **b)
  File "C:/alex/alt_web2py/web2py/applications/ES1/controllers/default.py", line 5770, in locate_me


    location_data = json.loads(fetch('http://ipinfo.io/%s/json' % request.client

))
  File "C:\alex\alt_web2py\web2py\gluon\tools.py", line 4749, in fetch
    html = urllib2.urlopen(req).read()
  File "urllib2.py", line 154, in urlopen
  File "urllib2.py", line 431, in open
  File "urllib2.py", line 449, in _open
  File "urllib2.py", line 409, in _call_chain
  File "urllib2.py", line 1227, in http_open
  File "urllib2.py", line 1197, in do_open
URLError: <urlopen error [Errno 10061] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it>

Error snapshot

<class 'urllib2.URLError'>(<urlopen error [Errno 10061] No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it>)

Leonel Câmara

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Sep 30, 2015, 4:37:53 PM9/30/15

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Well the error says it all. Your connection is being refused. It appears you bumped into the 1k calls API limit by making too many calls.

It has to be json.loads because fetch returns a string.

Alex Glaros

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Sep 30, 2015, 4:47:08 PM9/30/15

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only made a couple of attempts, not one thousand. And the call from browser still works so doesn't appear that number of attempts is causing it to actively refuse my IP. Also tried another company and got same error:

http://api.db-ip.com/addrinfo?addr=173.194.67.1&api_key=f268dd236413839e52713b38e*Disguised the key*

is there another way to get the info without json or fetch or maybe loads? Am wondering if they are adding anything.

any work-around ideas would be appreciated

thanks

Alex

Leonel Câmara

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Sep 30, 2015, 7:31:01 PM9/30/15

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There must be something wrong on your side (maybe a firewall blocking python or another network issue) because this works fine on my tests.

Alex Glaros

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Sep 30, 2015, 7:42:16 PM9/30/15

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I think you're right. Will try from home tonight. Thanks!

Alex Glaros

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Oct 1, 2015, 12:37:13 AM10/1/15

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it pretty much works from PythonAnywhere, except it doesn't put data in the vars correctly . Data looks like this with strange letter "u" in front:

{u'loc': u'38.5249,-121.9708', u'city': u'Winters', u'country': u'US', u'region': u'California', u'hostname': u'No Hostname', u'ip': u'108.70.229.156', u'org': u'AS7018 AT&T Services, Inc.', u'postal': u'95694'}

<type 'exceptions.NameError'> name 'city' is not defined

how to get clean data in the vars? It did not accept location_data.city or location_data[city] either

thanks,

Alex

Leonel Câmara

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Oct 1, 2015, 3:47:42 AM10/1/15

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That's not problem in python 2 a string like this u'' just means it's unicode you can convert it to utf-8 but there's no need.

If you notice how I do it in my example I use the dict the API returns as the dict my controller returns, so you access it's keys directly in the view.

Alex Glaros

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Oct 1, 2015, 11:26:45 AM10/1/15

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sure, I copied your view exactly, but is there anything different in the view that you tested on your side?

{{extend 'layout.html'}}
<dl>
  <dt>City</dt>
  <dd>{{=city}}</dd>
  <dt>Region</dt>
  <dd>{{=region}}</dd>
  <dt>Country</dt>
  <dd>{{=country}}</dd>
</dl>

Do I need to define "city" in my controller? I get this error:

<type 'exceptions.NameError'> name 'city' is not defined

Version

web2py™	Version 2.9.5-stable+timestamp.2014.03.16.02.35.39
Python	Python 2.7.6: /usr/local/bin/uwsgi (prefix: /usr)

Traceback

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/alexglaros/web2py/gluon/restricted.py", line 220, in restricted
    exec ccode in environment
  File "/home/alexglaros/web2py/applications/engagementsquared/views/default/locate_me.html", line 83, in <module>
NameError: name 'city' is not defined

Error snapshot

<type 'exceptions.NameError'>(name 'city' is not defined)

inspect attributes

Frames

File /home/alexglaros/web2py/gluon/restricted.py in restricted at line 220 code arguments variables

File /home/alexglaros/web2py/applications/engagementsquared/views/default/locate_me.html in <module> at line 83 code arguments variables

Function argument list

()

Code listing

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93.     response.write('\n        </div>\n        ', escape=False)
    pass
response.write('\n\n        <div class="', escape=False)
response.write(middle_columns)
response.write('">\n            ', escape=False)
response.write('\n            ', escape=False)
response.write('\n\n', escape=False)
response.write(location_data)
response.write('\n<dl>\n  <dt>City</dt>\n  <dd>', escape=False)
response.write(city)

response.write('</dd>\n  <dt>Region</dt>\n  <dd>{=region}}</dd>\n  <dt>Country</dt>\n  <dd>{=country}}</dd>\n</dl>', escape=False)
response.write('\n            ', escape=False)
response.write('\n        </div>\n\n        ', escape=False)
if right_sidebar_enabled:
    response.write('\n        <div class="span3">\n            ', escape=False)
    response.write('\n            <h3>Right Sidebar</h3>\n            <p></p>\n            ', escape=False)
    response.write('\n        </div>\n        ', escape=False)
    pass
response.write('\n    </section><!--/main-->\n\n    <!-- Footer ================================================== -->\n\t       <footer class="footer" id="footer">\n       \n<table id="over_arching_footer_table" tr><td id="1st_column" width="33%" style="padding:25px">\n                ', escape=False)
response.write(' <!-- this is default footer -->\n                <div class="copyright pull-left"><ul>\n                    <li>Version 1.0 - Engagement Squared </li>\n                    <li> ', escape=False)

thanks,

Alex

Diogene Laerce

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Oct 1, 2015, 2:27:13 PM10/1/15

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Le 01/10/2015 17:26, Alex Glaros a écrit :
> sure, I copied your view exactly, but is there anything different in
> the view that you tested on your side?
> |
> {{extend 'layout.html'}}
> <dl>
> <dt>City</dt>
> <dd>{{=city}}</dd>
> <dt>Region</dt>
> <dd>{{=region}}</dd>
> <dt>Country</dt>
> <dd>{{=country}}</dd>
> </dl>
> |
>
> Do I need to define "city" in my controller? I get this error:
>
>
> <type 'exceptions.NameError'> name 'city' is not defined
>

As a learned lesson, you need to make sure of its availability :

{{city = globals().get('city', '')}}

in the view. I guess you will have the same error with the other
variables.

Good luck,

--
“One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.”
“Le vrai n'est pas plus sûr que le probable.”

Diogene Laerce

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Alex Glaros

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Oct 1, 2015, 3:05:24 PM10/1/15

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hi Laer,

it's available as can be seen from displaying contents of "location_data"

{u'loc': u'38.6071,-121.4633', u'city': u'Sacramento', u'country': u'US', u'region': u'California', u'hostname': u'No Hostname', u'ip': u'159.145.7.104', u'org': u'AS1226 California Technology Agency', u'postal': u'95815'}

City
Region
Country

but somehow the available data does not go into the var names

thanks,

Alex

Diogene Laerce

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Oct 1, 2015, 4:01:48 PM10/1/15

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I can see that your file is named locate_me.html, is your function
in the controller has the same name ?..

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Alex Glaros

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Oct 1, 2015, 4:15:10 PM10/1/15

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sure, it is the same

maybe I need to define the globals or location_data as a dict?

as a work-around, I can read location_data as string, but seems that a simple answer might be available

Alex Glaros

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Oct 1, 2015, 4:30:40 PM10/1/15

to web2py-users

This works. But is it good programming?

in controller, convert into a dict:

    location_data = dict(json.loads(fetch('http://ipinfo.io/%s/json' % request.client)))

in view:

  <dd>{{=location_data['city']}}</dd>

Diogene Laerce

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Oct 1, 2015, 4:38:27 PM10/1/15

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As Leonel said, you should access it with "city" directly.

Kind regards,

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Leonel Câmara

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Oct 1, 2015, 6:31:29 PM10/1/15

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Alex I think you're slightly confused, let me explain.

This was the original controller function I suggested.

def locateme():
import json
from gluon.tools import

fetch
location_data = json.loads(fetch('http://ipinfo.io/%s/json' % request.client))
return location_data

Note that it returns location_data, what is location data? Well it's a dict because that's what the API returns and the json module takes care of that for us.

In web2py, controller functions that return dicts make the keys in that dictionary available in the view. So in the view you shouldn't be acessing location_data directly you should be accessing its keys.

To further illustrate I could rewrite locateme like this

def locateme():
import json
from gluon.tools import

fetch
location_data = json.loads(fetch('http://ipinfo.io/%s/json' % request.client))
return dict(city=location_data[u'city'], region=location_data[u'region'], country=location_data[u'country'],)

But this would be superfluous because location_data is already a dict I can perfectly well return.

Alex Glaros

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Oct 1, 2015, 6:45:11 PM10/1/15

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thanks Leonel,

I get the logic but it didn't work in my configuration, however I'm very happy to have it work with the extra "dict" term.

Appreciate for your patience. It's my introduction to API and JSON.

great to have these explanations!

Alex

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