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The Dark Sky API
4:09The Dark Sky API is a RESTful API, which means that we can use the API via a simple identifier, a URL.
When we're working with APIs,
we care a lot about the interface itself.
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It's an understanding between the user,
us, and the service, Dark Sky.
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It's much like a contract.
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It tells us what we need
to provide to the service.
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In exchange,
it tells us what the service will return.
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The rest of the details, like where
they get the weather information,
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how they manage it,etc,
is hidden from us, which is fine.
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Let's take a look at the Dark Sky API,
and see how to use their latest version.
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We care about this one here,
the Forecast Request.
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The Forecast Request returns current
weather data, along with forecast date for
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the next hour, 48 hours,
and the next week.
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This is more or less the interface
we will be using for our Stormy app.
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We'll need to do a bit of work,
of course, but don't worry,
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it isn't going to stretch us too much, and
I'll walk you through it step by step.
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Essentially, we are going to
make a request at this URL and
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then handle the response
Dark Sky provides.
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We'll dive into that in more detail soon.
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The Dark Sky API is a web API that follows
the common RESTful programming pattern.
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REST stands for
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Representational State Transfer,
which in it of itself may not mean much.
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In our context, it means that when an API
adheres to the principles of REST,
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it doesn't require us, the client,
to know anything about the specific
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structure of the API,
it's another black box, if you will.
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A RESTful API provides
whatever information
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the client needs to interact
with by means of an identifier.
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In most cases, this is a URL.
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A URL is a reference to a resource like
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http://www.google.com, or
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in our case here, the special URL that
will give us a specific weather forecast.
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RESTful programming isn'tt necessarily
restricted to the web, but
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most web-based APIs are built
following the RESTful pattern.
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In our case, our client, the Stormy app,
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doesn't know anything at
all about the Dark Sky API.
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We simply request the data we
need through an exposed URL
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with certain keywords that
specify what data we want back.
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The API then returns this data to our
client in a specified format, XML,
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JSON, or some other data format.
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In the case of Dark Sky, we see JSON data,
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which is part of the contract
the API establishes with the client.
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With a RESTful API,
that's the only real restriction.
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The client and server need to agree
on the data format being used.
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JSON data is very common for
web APIs to provide.
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And that's what we'll use in this course.
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Returning to the Dark Sky API
documentation, if we look at this URL
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under Forecast Request, we see how we
need to construct the request to the API.
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The URL has this base component
of api.darksky.net/forecast,
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and then needs specific identifiers,
such as a private API key,
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and the longitude and
latitude coordinates, for our location.
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But wait, a private API key?
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What's that all about?
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We'll need to register for
a Dark Sky developer account so
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we can get an API key and
use this service.
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We click on the Sign Up button up at
the top of the page, we can register.
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It's super simple, and all you need to
provide is an email address and password.
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I'll put the link in the Teacher's Notes,
if you need it as well.
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Once you're registered, you'll see
a request to provide billing information.
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We can ignore that because we'll
utilize their free service tier.
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The free tier allows 1,000 requests a day.
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This will be plenty for our purposes.
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If you decide to publish
your app on the Play Store,
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you'll probably want to
upgrade to the paid tier.
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Great, once you've register with Dark Sky,
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join me in the next video
where we'll start our project.
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