February 24th 2022

February 24th 2022

In a nutshell:

  • A REST API allows you to retrieve/edit resources using queries that are documented in the API’s documentation
  • Those queries are simple HTTP queries, meaning you can preview them in your browser
  • Implementing such an API in vvvv means parsing those responses and de-serializing their content to Records that match the structure of the response
  • Serializing means going from object to text representation, de-serializing is the other way around
  • REST APIs are not real-time, meaning you have to explicitely fetch content yourself to get updated results (the server is not able to deliberately send data to you)
  • HTTP queries can have different Methods depending on what we want to do (GET, POST, DELETE)


Topics Covered:

  • We used VL.SimpleHTTP to perform GET and POST queries
  • We used ParseJSON and XPath nodes to parse data from these responses
  • We discussed Postman, an online tool to test and document REST queries
  • We interacted with Directus, a CMS that builds a dynamic REST API reflecting your data mode



Recording:

Collective Message Board Exercise