15. Using Web Services

Once it became easy to retrieve documents and parse documents over HTTP using programs, it did not take long to develop an approach where we started producing documents that were specifically designed to be consumed by other programs (i.e., not HTML to be displayed in a browser).

There are two common formats that we use when exchanging data across the web. eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has been in use for a very long time and is best suited for exchanging document-style data. When programs just want to exchange dictionaries, lists, or other internal information with each other, they use JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) (see www.json.org). We will look at both formats.

Using Web Services

• 15.1. eXtensible Markup Language - XML
  • 15.1.1. Properly Formatted XML
• 15.2. Parsing XML
  • 15.2.1. Using get to get the value of an attribute
  • 15.2.2. Getting Data from the First Element of a Type in XML
  • 15.2.3. Fixing Errors in XML
  • 15.2.4. Write Code to Process XML
• 15.3. Looping through nodes
• 15.4. JavaScript Object Notation - JSON
  • 15.4.1. List of Dictionaries
• 15.5. What is JSON?
  • 15.5.1. Converting a JSON String into a Python Object
  • 15.5.2. Converting a Python object into a JSON string
• 15.6. Application Programming Interfaces
  • 15.6.1. Getting JSON Data From an API
  • 15.6.2. Using a Dictionary for URL Parameters
• 15.7. Security and API usage
• 15.8. Glossary
• 15.9. Multiple Choice Questions
• 15.10. Mixed-Up Code Questions
• 15.11. Write Code Questions
• 15.12. Application 1: Google geocoding web service
• 15.13. Application 2: Twitter

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