a couple of API changes I would like to see

[Gordon Anderson]

hi

I have written a simple Rails app to create a search interface similar in look n feel to google.  However I noticed some issues with data returned by the API.

1) The date field appears to be incorrect

2) The description field is cropped

In order to get this missing information I had to use the metadata API where I discovered I can only get one record at a time.  As a result a page returning 20 records results in 1 API call for the search and 1 for each of the records returned (which I then cache incidentally for speed), a grand total of 21 calls.  Not ideal!

So to summarize the changes I would like to see in a future version of this API are

1) Fix the date and description fields

2) Allow more than one metadata record to be retrieved (within reason obviously, say perhaps 20) so that one can batch API calls.

Comments welcome

Cheers

Gordon

[Gordon Paynter]

Hi Gordon:

By way of update, we're looking into the date field, and we'll
probably change the description field as you suggest, but first we
have to make sure it wont introduce any major changes to the data that
could affect existing applications (I suspect some early harvests may
have dumped very long full-text values in the description field).

The "retrieve multiple metadata fields with one call" idea is on the
backlog.

Gordon


On Jun 10, 9:33 pm, Gordon Anderson <gordon.b.ander...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Gordon Anderson]

hi Gordon 

Hi Gordon:

By way of update, we're looking into the date field, and we'll
probably change the description field as you suggest, but first we
have to make sure it wont introduce any major changes to the data that
could affect existing applications (I suspect some early harvests may
have dumped very long full-text values in the description field).

Yes, I noticed that some of the nzetc ones were quite long.  If the whole description is not practical then a longer cropped version would be an improvement.

 

The "retrieve multiple metadata fields with one call" idea is on the
backlog.

Thanks for letting me know

G