reading GTFS files

[Kevin Chiu]

I'm a newbie in this. I'm not a programmer but going to teach myself how to build an real-time app, especially an MTA one. Only problem is, how do you parse the GTFS feed? I mean I downloaded the raw data. how does one parse that information because I can't read the GTFS file when I open it in Notepad. I know that file isn't a plain text format but is there a free application that can read GTFS files?

[Justin Ryan]

Using GTFS and Protobufs requires fairly advanced programming skills, and is not well documented, let alone for beginners. I wouldn't do this as a first project. You might have a look at http://nycpulse.herokuapp.com/api, which isn't from the MTA but uses their data. It will give you easy to parse JSON like http://mtaapi.herokuapp.com/api?id=120S. There are lots of tutorials out there to help you get started -- search for how to use a REST API.

[N.M. F.]

I have a key and use the Bustime GTFS data. But no one shows the link of the subway. What is the link if I wanted to check up real-time GTFS data of the Q train toward coney island?

[Geoffrey Wilkinson]

Hi Kevin

Ignore the discouraging comments on here. 

I'm not sure what language you are using, but you want to check out this link. Scroll down to the README file and read it and select the language you are using and there will be an example piece of code for you to perform a request to the URL you use to get the GTFS file and read it:

https://github.com/google/gtfs-realtime-bindings

On Saturday, October 28, 2017 at 8:52:48 PM UTC-4, Kevin Chiu wrote:

[Steven Raaen]

If you're using Node, theres a simple package that works nicely. https://www.npmjs.com/package/mta-gtfs.  FWIW, if you're just starting out, Javascript transpiles into Android/Java as well as ios. React still seems to be the rage.

On Saturday, October 28, 2017 at 8:52:48 PM UTC-4, Kevin Chiu wrote:

[Daniel Ramteke]

For Underway we use Apple's Protobuf parser on the server https://github.com/apple/swift-protobuf Remember to get the MTA's NYCT protobuf extensions.

Daniel

Underway NYC | https://underway.nyc 
twitter.com/underwayNYC 
facebook.com/underwayNYC

[Jon Thornton]

Check out https://github.com/jonthornton/MTAPI for an example of GTFS in Python