Perl Scripts

No one can deny the power of a good quote. They motivate and inspire us to be our best. [1]

Here are 3 quotes API that can be integrated in your website with source code example in perl.

1. Random Famous Quotes provides a random quote from famous movies in JSON format. This API is hosted on Mashape.
Mashape has example how to use API with unirest.post module however as perl is not supported by unirest here is the example of consuming API in different way. You need obtain Mashape key to run your own code.

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };
use JSON qw( decode_json );

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;

$server_endpoint="https://andruxnet-random-famous-quotes.p.mashape.com/?cat=movies";
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(POST => $server_endpoint);   

$req->header('content-type' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
$req->header('X-Mashape-Key' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxx');
$req->header('Accept' => 'application/json');

$req->content($post_data);

$resp = $ua->request($req);
if ($resp->is_success) {
    
     my $message = decode_json($resp->content);

print $message->{"quote"};
print $message->{"author"};

}
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

2. Forismatic.com provides API to collection of the most inspiring expressions of mankind. The output is supported different formats such as xml, json, jsonp, html,
text. The quotes can be in English or Russian language. Below is the source code example how to consume this API. Note that in this example we use method GET while in previous example we used method POST. Also the code example is showing how to get output in json and html formats.

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };
use JSON qw( decode_json );


my $ua5 = LWP::UserAgent->new;

my $req5 = HTTP::Request->new(GET => "http://api.forismatic.com/api/1.0/?method=getQuote&format=json&lang=en");

$req5->header('content-type' => 'application/json');
$resp5 = $ua5->request($req5);

if ($resp5->is_success) {
          
     $message = decode_json($resp5->content);
     

print $message->{"quoteText"};
print $message->{"quoteAuthor"};

}
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

# below is the code to get output in html format
my $req5 = HTTP::Request->new(GET => "http://api.forismatic.com/api/1.0/?method=getQuote&format=html&lang=en");

     $req5->header('content-type' => 'text/html');

     $resp5 = $ua5->request($req5);
     if ($resp5->is_success) {
    
     $message5 = $resp5->content;
     print $message5;
  }
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

3. favqs.com also provides quotes API. You can do many different things with quotes on this site on with API. FavQs allows you to collect, discover, and share your favorite quotes. You can get quote of the day, search by authors, tags or users. Here is the code example

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };
use JSON qw( decode_json );

    my $req5 = HTTP::Request->new(GET => "https://favqs.com/api/qotd");

     $req5->header('content-type' => 'application/json');
     $resp5 = $ua5->request($req5);
     if ($resp5->is_success) {
             
     $message5 = $resp5->content;
     print $message5;

     $message = decode_json($resp5->content);
   
print $message->{"quote"}->{"body"};
print $message->{"quote"}->{"author"};

  }
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

References

1. 38 of the Most Inspirational Leadership Quotes
2. LWP
3. How to send http get or post request in perl.html

In one of previous post the Faroo API was used in order to get data content from the web. In this post we will look at different API that can be also used for downloading content from web. Here we will use the Guardian API / open platform.
At the time of writing at stated on website it has over 1.7 million pieces of content that can be used to build apps. This is the great opportunity to supplement your articles with related Guardian content. And we will look how to do this.

Specifically the perl script will be used for getting web search results with Guardian API. The following are the main steps in this perl script:
Connecting to Gurdian API
In this step we provide our API key and parameters to search function with the search terms string.

use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $server_endpoint = "http://content.guardianapis.com/search";
$server_endpoint=$server_endpoint."?q=$q&format=json&api-key=xxxxxxxx&page-size=10&page=$page";
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $server_endpoint);

Getting the Search Results and Decoding json data
In this step we decode json text that we got returned from our call to web search function.

use JSON qw( decode_json );
$resp = $ua->request($req);
if ($resp->is_success) {
        my $message = decode_json($resp->content);
###if we want to print to look at raw data:
###print $resp->content;
}

Displaying data
Now we are displaying data

use JSON qw( decode_json );

$items_N=10;
for ($i=0; $i<$items_N; $i++)
{

print  $message->{response}->{results}->[$i]->{webTitle};
print  $message->{response}->{results}->[$i]->{webUrl};
}

Conclusion
Thus we looked at how to connect to The Guardian API , how to get data returned by this API service, how to process json data and how to display data to user.
If your website is showing some content then it can be complemented by content returned from The Guardian API.
Feel free to ask questions, suggestions, modifications.

References
1. The Guardian
2. Online example of web search with the perl script

Below is the full perl source code

#!/usr/bin/perl

use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };
use JSON qw( decode_json );
use CGI;

my $data = CGI->new();
my $q = $data->param('q');
my $start = $data->param('start');

if (($start eq "") || ($start == 0)) 
{$page=1;}
else
{  
    $page= int($start / 10) ;
}


if ($start eq "") {$start = 1;}

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;


# http://open-platform.theguardian.com/documentation/search
my $server_endpoint = "http://content.guardianapis.com/search";
$server_endpoint=$server_endpoint."?q=$q&format=json&api-key=xxxx&page-size=10&page=$page";


my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $server_endpoint);

$resp = $ua->request($req);
if ($resp->is_success) {
     
my $message = decode_json($resp->content);

###if we want to print to look at raw data:
###print $resp->content;

$items_N=10;
for ($i=0; $i<$items_N; $i++)
{
print  $message->{response}->{results}->[$i]->{webTitle};
print $message->{response}->{results}->[$i]->{webUrl};
}
  
}
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

As stated on Wikipedia “The number of available web APIs has grown consistently over the past years, as businesses realize the growth opportunities associated with running an open platform, that any developer can interact with.” [1]
For web developers web API (application programming interface) allows to create own application using existing functionality from another web application instead of creating everything from scratch.

For example if you are building application that is delivering information from the web to the users you can take Faroo API and you will need only to add user interface and connection to Faroo API service. Faroo API seems like a perfect solution for providing news api in all kind of format, either you are building a web application, website or mobile application.

This is because Faroo API is doing the work of getting data from the web. This API provides data from the web and has such functionalities as web search (more than 2 billion pages indexed as at the time of writing), news search (newspapers, magazines and blogs), trending news (grouped by topic, topics sorted by buzz), trending topics, trending terms, suggestions. The output of this API can be in different formats (json, xml, rss). You need only to make a call to Faroo API service and send the returned data to user interface. [2]

In this post the perl script that doing is showing data returned from web search for the given by user keywords will be implemented.

Connecting to Faroo API
The first step is to connect to Faroo API. The code snippet for this is shown below. The required parameters are specified via query string for server endpoint URL. For more details see Faroo API website [2]

• q – search terms or keywords for web search
• start – starting number of results
• l – language, in our case english
• src – source of data, in our case web search
• f – format of returned data, in this example we use json format
• key – registration key, should be obtained from Faroo API website for free

use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };

my $data = CGI->new();
my $q = $data->param('q');

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $server_endpoint = "http://www.faroo.com/api";
$server_endpoint=$server_endpoint."?q=$q&start=1&l=en&src=web&f=json&key=xxxxxxxxx&jsoncallback=?";
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $server_endpoint);
$resp = $ua->request($req);

Processing JSON Data and Displaying Data to Web User
If our call to Faroo API was successful we would get data and can start to display to web user as in the below code snippet:

use JSON qw( decode_json );

$resp = $ua->request($req);
if ($resp->is_success) {
   
my $message = decode_json($resp->content);

$items_N= $message->{count};
if($items_N >10) {$items_N=10;}
for ($i=0; $i<$items_N; $i++)
{

print  $message->{results}->[$i]->{title};

print  $message->{results}->[$i]->{url};

print  $message->{results}->[$i]->{kwic};

}

$next_number = 10 + $message->{start};    
}
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

Full Source Code and Online Demo
The web search based on this perl code can be viewed and tested online at Demo for web search based on Faroo API

And here is the perl script, please note that some HTML formatting is not shown.

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request::Common qw{ POST };
use JSON qw( decode_json );
use CGI;


my $data = CGI->new();
my $q = $data->param('q');

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $server_endpoint = "http://www.faroo.com/api";
$server_endpoint=$server_endpoint."?q=$q&start=1&l=en&src=web&f=json&key=xxxxxxxx&jsoncallback=?";
my $req = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $server_endpoint);

$resp = $ua->request($req);
if ($resp->is_success) {
     print " SUCCESS...";
    
my $message = decode_json($resp->content);

$items_N= $message->{count};
if($items_N >10) {$items_N=10;}
for ($i=0; $i<$items_N; $i++)
{
print  $message->{results}->[$i]->{title};
print  $message->{results}->[$i]->{url};
print  $message->{results}->[$i]->{kwic};
}

$next_number = 10 + $message->{start};    
}
else {
    print "HTTP GET error code: ", $resp->code, "\n";
    print "HTTP GET error message: ", $resp->message, "\n";
}

Thus we looked at how to connect to Faroo API , how to get data returned by this API service, how to process json data and how to display data to user.
If your website is showing some content then it can be complemented by content returned from Faroo API.
Feel free to ask questions, suggestions, modifications.

References

1. Wikipedia

2. Faroo – Free Search API

3. Demo for web search based on Faroo API