New fanart.tv API address

[Kode 49]

To any devs, if you use the default JSON feed can you change it to use http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/MOVIEID?api_key=YOURAPIKEY

 

So for example:

 

http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/tt0120737?api_key=6fa42b0ef3b5f3aab6a7edaa78675ac2

 

The new API isn't finished yet, but works a lot better in the backend, is less stressful on the server, and uses much less bandwidth, the GET endpoint for movies wont change so it should be safe to use.

 

The reason for this request before its finished is API traffic has gone from about 2.6million requests a day (76million a month) to around 7.6million a day (or about 230million a month) in the last month, and the API server is struggling at times, so anyone we can move over to the newer API will be a help.

[Luke 37022]

we're actually using the xml still. is that an issue?

 

while I have you here, the reason we're still using the xml is due to the json strcuture which cannot be easily parsed by generic json parsing libraries.

 

for example:

 

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring": {}

 

using the movie name as the property name means we can't define a known structure, which means we're going to have to write our own code to parse this.

 

whereas something like this would be much easier to parse with very little effort:

 

{

   "name": "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"

}

 

So while we can use your json, it's just not very developer friendly which means I'm going to have to allocate more time to it than I would like.

[Kode 49]

XML isn't in the new API (yet, not 100% whether to add it yet, might keep just in the v2 api)

 

As for JSON, really?  Im not sure what parser you are using but it shouldn't be that difficult, the name is just for reference but the rest should be readily accessible, in PHP you could just do something like:

 

$request = file_get_contents("http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/tt0120737?api_key=6fa42b0ef3b5f3aab6a7edaa78675ac2");

$art = json_decode($request);

$movie = current($art);

 

then everything is accessible from $movie->itemname so foreach($movie->clearlogos as $clearlogo) { do something }

 

The biggest issue with changing it is it will mean everyone who currently uses it will have to change their code as well as the url

Edited July 10, 2014 by Kode

[ebr 14904]

The problem is we're not dealing in PHP we are in managed .net (c#) so we need defined property names or we cannot define a c# class that matches up with your json.

[Kode 49]

In case anyone is interested here are the ab results on the same server

 

OLD API

Concurrency Level:      5

Time taken for tests:   343.424 seconds

Complete requests:      1000

Total transferred:      12221000 bytes

HTML transferred:       11789000 bytes

Requests per second:    2.91 [#/sec] (mean)

Time per request:       1717.118 [ms] (mean)

Time per request:       343.424 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)

Transfer rate:          34.75 [Kbytes/sec] received

 

Connection Times (ms)

              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max

Connect:        0    0   0.1      0       4

Processing:   188 1712 454.1   1802    2605

Waiting:      166 1656 450.7   1745    2558

Total:        188 1712 454.1   1803    2606

 

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)

  50%   1803

  66%   1954

  75%   2023

  80%   2056

  90%   2179

  95%   2286

  98%   2404

  99%   2470

 100%   2606 (longest request)

 

NEW API

Concurrency Level:      5

Time taken for tests:   3.185 seconds

Complete requests:      1000

Total transferred:      17474000 bytes

HTML transferred:       17294000 bytes

Requests per second:    313.97 [#/sec] (mean)

Time per request:       15.925 [ms] (mean)

Time per request:       3.185 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)

Transfer rate:          5357.74 [Kbytes/sec] received

 

Connection Times (ms)

              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max

Connect:        0    0   0.1      0       1

Processing:     9   16   9.1     11      65

Waiting:        2    7   7.8      4      55

Total:          9   16   9.1     12      65

 

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)

  50%     12

  66%     15

  75%     18

  80%     20

  90%     27

  95%     36

  98%     46

  99%     51

 100%     65 (longest request)

 

[Luke 37022]

Yea. it can be done, but it will take longer than usual. whereas Tmdb for example, I added them in about 15 minutes the other day with their easy to parse structure.

[Luke 37022]

nice work. those look like some great improvements.

[Kode 49]

Does this help at all? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17454055/dealing-with-fanart-tv-webservice-response-json-and-c-sharp

[Tim Hobbs 91]

Would dynamic help out here? It may make it easier with a little less hoop-jumping.

 

Even so, it would be in the best interest of a good api design for the fanart api to structure it similar to the above example Luke provided. You'll run in to similar issues with any statically typed language.

[Kode 49]

To be honest though, noone is using it yet, so I guess I could change it and hope devs update their code

[Tim Hobbs 91]

Does this help at all? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17454055/dealing-with-fanart-tv-webservice-response-json-and-c-sharp

 

That is pretty good.

 

I think it is probably just a preference to not have to use the Dictionary<string, *>. If there was a key passed via the API it could be deserialized directly to a typed object. At this point it is 6 of one, a half dozen of the other.

 

It has been some time since I have done anything with java, and I know there is some generic support, but like I mentioned this may be an issue there too. Although, if it means breaking existing working code, I can understand why you'd maybe want to not change the API.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Tim Hobbs

[ebr 14904]

We could always write some custom code like that but, right now, we're using standard json deserializers and they won't understand the current structure.  So, we'd always have to have a special case just for this API.

[Kode 49]

http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/120?api_key=6fa42b0ef3b5f3aab6a7edaa78675ac2  <-- that better?

[Luke 37022]

Does this help at all? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17454055/dealing-with-fanart-tv-webservice-response-json-and-c-sharp

 

Thanks. I know how to do it, but just like what we've seen with our api, if you make it a priority to make it as easy as possible, you'll be surprised at the positive impact that will have.

[Luke 37022]

http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/120?api_key=6fa42b0ef3b5f3aab6a7edaa78675ac2  

 

how about

 

http://paste2.org/e0XPZz9Z

 

I'm missing a comma but you get the idea

[Kode 49]

would have movie in there make it easier for you?

[Kode 49]

You might not have got the right one as it was cched on one of the servers

[Luke 37022]

ah ok, just saw the update. movie is not necessary. i only based that on what i saw previously.

[Kode 49]

http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/76338?api_key=6fa42b0ef3b5f3aab6a7edaa78675ac2

[Luke 37022]

http://webservice.fanart.tv/v3/movies/76338?api_key=6fa42b0ef3b5f3aab6a7edaa78675ac2

 

perfect

[Kode 49]

So does that work better for you guys like that?

 

If so I'll leave it like that and tell people to update their code or stick with the old one for now

[Luke 37022]

that will work better not only for us, but everyone who uses the api. no doubt about it. thanks.

[Kode 49]

No problem, it was useful to get feedback like this

[ScottIsAFool 517]

Guess I should be ready to update this project then  https://github.com/ScottIsAFool/FanArtPortable/

 

Also, this is how I got round the json problem with the older API (if anyone is interested) https://github.com/ScottIsAFool/FanArtPortable/blob/658d78e1bad4f861146bc32906c31591813eb4e1/FanArtPortable/ExtensionMethods.cs#L19 (usage: https://github.com/ScottIsAFool/FanArtPortable/blob/master/FanArtPortable/FanArtClient.cs#L174)

Edited July 11, 2014 by ScottIsAFool

[Kode 49]

Nice