Module 2A: IMDB Data (Pulling Data From APIs)

The ASCAP example in module one was handy, wasn't it? But what if you need data that isn't available in such a direct way? Not all data sources are nice enough to put it together for you in a package. In a lot of cases, you'll need some advanced skills in getting this data yourself, which is where a RESTful API comes in handy.

A RESTful API is an application program interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to do things with external data. REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer, which can be thought of as the language of the Internet. These APIs allow end users to connect and interact with data services; in most of our cases, this will be receiving data stored somewhere else, usually with a set of input data which is used to call the rest of it.

(If you're interested in learning more, there are many comprehensive tutorials out there -- this being one of the best. We'll go through API commands simply and slowly, but if you want to extend your skills with REST API commands, it will take some time to learn.)

IMDB

The Internet Movie Database is one such source that really doesn't tie things up in a neat package for you. There are data exports, and while a lot of web sites go out of their way to advertise and document the use of their APIs, IMDB does not.

This chilly approach to data has led to a number of unofficial open-source APIs with data "scraped" (harvested or extracted) from IMDB -- some of which are of questionable legality. We will use the Open Movie Database (OMDB) to get our data.

Note: the OMDB is not endorsed by or affiliated with IMDb. All of the content in their database is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

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