access API

[anisha.silva]

HI,

I need to create an application that access API of libraries.
I am trying to do this in ASP.net C#.
Could someone please give me some information on how to start ths.
I am net to this.

apppreciate a reply,
thanks

[hericles]

Are you accessing an APIs that already exist or creating an API for your software?
Most APIs come with some form of documentation to get you started so that is obviously the best place to start.
Before we can really help you, do you know what access method the APIs use?

[anisha.silva]

hey
no i am trying to use that are already existing

ex: http://developer.bookshare.org/io-docs

how to i access the data via this API

appreciate a reply

thanks

[hericles]

OK, from what I can make out in a few minutes reading is that the APIs are http based web calls. The base URI is https://api.bookshare.org/ and you add onto the required parameters to call a particular method.
For example the docs state the ISBN search looks like this:

/book/isbn/:isbn/format/:format

The parameter specified by the : character is the actual search term so an example web request to get the ISBN 12345 in xml format would look like this:
https://api.bookshare.org/book/isbn/12345/format/xml

You would use a standard C# or VB.Net HTTPWebRequest to call the URI and a HTTPWebResponse to hold the returned data. Of course some method calls require the API key to also be sent, the written docs explained that so I don't need to copy it here.

[anisha.silva]

hey hericles,

so o put the application key for the server in my project web.configuration file right?

when it comes to writing the code for getting the isbn from the user and sending the request to the server how does it work as in code?

i am not that familiar with this

appreciate a reply

thanks