/nodejs-beginner

my first nodejs app

MIT LicenseMIT

nodejs-beginner

The objective of this how-to is to learn how to make API calls using NodeJS.

An Application Programmable Interface or API allows a programmer to interact with a web service. An example web-service could be a public-facing database. Another example is where software vendors write APIs for programmers to interact with desktop applications to automate tasks.

The API that I'll be using is the UK Met Office data point web service which exposes hourly updated meteorological and oceanographic observational data for ~15 locations around on the north west European Atlantic margin.

As an overview, thsi how-to will cover:

  • making specific HTTP requests that request specific data, in specific formats, which comply with the API documentation.
  • In response to the HTTP resquest, the API with provide an HTTP response in JSON format. The JavaScript Object Notation or JSON data format is widely used on the internet since it is structured and in plain, readable ASCII text.
  • I'll automate API calls to download the data and parse to a data store.
  • Then I'll manipulate/visualise the data, applying filters etc..

Resources

  • My API key is 2fb4da01-1217-4b07-bcac-b9136697856c
  • I'll be using the marine observation data product which uses the resource category field = wxmarineobs
  • full documentation on the API is available here
  • a full list of all locationIDs is here
  • I'll follow this blog on writing NodeJS code to make the HTTP requests and dealing with the HTTP responses

1. HTTP Requests

requesting timestamp capabilities:

requesting a single location

requesting all ship locations

requesting all buoy locations

2. HTTP Response