NationStates API (nationdata/regiondata)

[Cerb]

I'm probably missing something obvious. I want to track current region of nation,WA status, endorsements, and wehther a nation is active (as in not CTE).

I figured I could just grab the nation daily data dump but it seems to be missing endorsements.
This means I'd have to make a ton of API calls to gather this information.

Even if I just restricted my interest to my region itt would take several hundred calls. I can't afford to do that with the current rate limits.

Ideally endorsements would be present in the daily data dump. I don't need the data to be dynamic, just gathered once a day.

If there is another obvious solution please feel free to suggest it.

Cheers!

[Laevendell]

What does the "created" timestamp on resolutions signify?
How long after a resolution is created does it end? Or is there no set time? If not, could an end time perhaps be added to the resolution shard as well?
EDIT: I figured out I could use the "votetrack" shard to calculate it. A proposal vote lasts 4 days and the votetrack has one value for every elapsed hour.

[Laevendell]

Another suggestion: The happenings shard for nations show when a nation logded a message on the RMB. Would it be possible to include when a nation mentioned you or liked your message (like in Notices)? If you don't want to disturb the main happenings shart, perhaps have it in a separate shard or as a filter in the world happenings shard?

[[violet]]

Sorry for triple-posting, but I found an issue with the text of (at least) one issue result.
It says "@@PL(ANIMAL)@@ are considered a delicacy". Shouldn't @@PL(ANIMAL)@@ have been parsed to the national animal (plural) in the text?
EDIT: Also in "the government funds large training centres to turn @@PL(ANIMAL)@@ into functioning members of society".

Should be fixed now. I assume you're talking about the "legislation" nation shard.

[[violet]]

Would it be possible to include when a nation mentioned you or liked your message (like in Notices)?

Notices are considered private to the nation (same as which issues it's currently facing), so won't be added to a public API. I'm not sure there's a good way to duplicate the RMB part just for the API.

[Laevendell]

Notices are considered private to the nation (same as which issues it's currently facing), so won't be added to a public API. I'm not sure there's a good way to duplicate the RMB part just for the API.

I see, the fact that a nation was mentioned by another nation isn't really very interesting to nations other than the one mentioned.
Is there any consideration of a logged-in API, e.g. along my previous suggestion, using session tokens for very good security?

[[violet]]

Is there any consideration of a logged-in API, e.g. along my previous suggestion, using session tokens for very good security?

Which one is that? We're open to the concept. It's something I've been hoping to get one of our more security-aware devs to look at, since the last time I tried to mess in that area, it didn't work out so well.

[Laevendell]

Which one is that? We're open to the concept. It's something I've been hoping to get one of our more security-aware devs to look at, since the last time I tried to mess in that area, it didn't work out so well.

This is the basic idea, that I've seen used for several API:s I've worked with (e.g. the Norwegian Postal service).
You have an API endpoint where you can send in the following:
* nation name
* nation password (or an extra password set in settings that would only work for the API)
* an application token (optional; to identify the calling application)

The caller receives a short-lived access token (valid for perhaps 3 minutes?) and a refresh token.
You can use the refresh token to refresh your access token via another API call (you also get a new refresh token when you do this).

When calling the logged-in API endpoints you have to supply a valid (non-expired) access token rather than your password. This way you only send the password once (and the endpoint could be using SSL).
You could then receive information that is currently only available by fetching the web site and scraping it, on e.g. your dossier, as well as do actions like endorse/unendorse and move between regions. Possibly also telegrams (that would be really great), if you could put in limits so that it would not be abused by scripts. It could certainly reduce the need for web scraping.

[Unibot III]

This GDP and income information is pretty useful, [violet] - could we get shards for that, please?

[Aurum Rider]

+1 for GDP and income shards
Also, although the national data dump can be helpful, it can be massive and unweidly at the best of times.
Would it be possible for an API call that returns a national data-dump style output for a single region?

[Eluvatar]

I'm probably missing something obvious. I want to track current region of nation,WA status, endorsements, and wehther a nation is active (as in not CTE).

I figured I could just grab the nation daily data dump but it seems to be missing endorsements.
This means I'd have to make a ton of API calls to gather this information.

Even if I just restricted my interest to my region itt would take several hundred calls. I can't afford to do that with the current rate limits.

Ideally endorsements would be present in the daily data dump. I don't need the data to be dynamic, just gathered once a day.

If there is another obvious solution please feel free to suggest it.

Cheers!

If you don't mind your endorsement data being generally about 30 seconds out of date, use the NS++ API.

[Athretvari]

This GDP and income information is pretty useful, [violet] - could we get shards for that, please?

+1 on this! (Pretty please!)

[Eluvatar]

If you can't set the UserAgent, putting something informative in the URL's query string is definitely better than nothing.

I'm updating all the active gdocs I have edit privileges in to add the below to all API request URLs:

Code: Select all

"&gdoc="+SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getId()+"&useremail="+Session.getUser().getUserLoginId()

Because getUserLoginId() is being deprecated I would suggest changing the above code to something like:

Code: Select all

  var url = "http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?param_name1=" + param_value1
    + ...
    + "&gdoc=" + SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getId() + "&useremail="
    + Session.getUser().getEmail();

For scripts triggered by anonymous user action, I would suggest either not having them, or substituting the sheet owner's email instead:

Code: Select all

  var url = "http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?param_name1=" + param_value1
    + ...
    + "&gdoc=" + SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getId() + "&owneremail="
    + SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getOwner().getEmail();

[Vancouvia]

Hello, I was hoping someone could help me out.

I'm very inexperienced with coding but have a simple request. I currently have https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... newnations

I would like to have that format but instead of new nations be based on WA joinings (http://www.nationstates.net/page=activi ... ter=member)

Could someone please link me to this?

Thank you

[Laevendell]

There are two easy ways of getting the information.
The older way is using the WA memberlog shard: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... =memberlog
The newer way is using the World happenings shard with a member filter: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... ter=member
You'll have to filter yourself with some kind of XML parser if you only want admitted nations e.g.

[Vancouvia]

There are two easy ways of getting the information.
The older way is using the WA memberlog shard: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... =memberlog
The newer way is using the World happenings shard with a member filter: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... ter=member
You'll have to filter yourself with some kind of XML parser if you only want admitted nations e.g.

Any way to get it in the same format so it's just separated by commas? I have no idea what a XML parser is, haha.

[Nephmir]

There are two easy ways of getting the information.
The older way is using the WA memberlog shard: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... =memberlog
The newer way is using the World happenings shard with a member filter: https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... ter=member
You'll have to filter yourself with some kind of XML parser if you only want admitted nations e.g.

Any way to get it in the same format so it's just separated by commas? I have no idea what a XML parser is, haha.

Not sure if it helps, but if you're looking for times such events happened you can go to the activity page filtered on members and click the timestamp next to an event (IE- "seconds ago") and it'll show all the times the events happened instead of the vague timestamp (after the information is available on the API, which I believe has a 28 second delay).

If you're looking to recruit from a list of new members you can use the shard that shows all WA members, and copy and paste what you need out of it. There's also a tag for telegrams (if you're willing to purchase stamps from the store) for new delegates. Otherwise I'm afraid the only option is to use the activity page, unless you can somehow extract what you need through scraping or xml.

[Vancouvia]

Any way to get it in the same format so it's just separated by commas? I have no idea what a XML parser is, haha.

Not sure if it helps, but if you're looking for times such events happened you can go to the activity page filtered on members and click the timestamp next to an event (IE- "seconds ago") and it'll show all the times the events happened instead of the vague timestamp (after the information is available on the API, which I believe has a 28 second delay).

If you're looking to recruit from a list of new members you can use the shard that shows all WA members, and copy and paste what you need out of it. There's also a tag for telegrams (if you're willing to purchase stamps from the store) for new delegates. Otherwise I'm afraid the only option is to use the activity page, unless you can somehow extract what you need through scraping or xml.

Ah okay thanks, I was hoping someone already had what I needed, but I guess not. I'm clueless when it comes to coding.

[Zocra]

Is there a way to use the api to find range of rmb posts? Like if I wanted to search for posts from the first post ever to the 100th post or something...

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

If you're just talking about searching for a specific word or phrase, you can do that in the game itself, by going to the RMB in forum view (little link near the top) and searching there

[Phydios]

If you're just talking about searching for a specific word or phrase, you can do that in the game itself, by going to the RMB in forum view (little link near the top) and searching there

I think they mean pulling a specific range of RMB posts using the post ID. In their example, it would be getting the API to return the 100 oldest RMB posts that are saved.

[Zacherie]

On the Telegram API: When the script breaks the API script limit, it doesn't give much useful information other than that you broke it.
I think in the style of the "queued" message, it'd be more helpful if it returned something along the lines of "@@Rate Limit Hit@@ by &&CLIENT&& wait @@X@@ seconds to send" to allow easy error checking.

EDIT

Is there a way to use the api to find range of rmb posts? Like if I wanted to search for posts from the first post ever to the 100th post or something...

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api ... gion=(name)&q=messages;offset=OFFSET

grab offset 0
grab offset 10
grab offset 20
..
grab offset 90

EDIT 2:
using the nation happenings tag tends to not be incredibly useful. Extra parameters, like that on the world happenings, would add to the usability of the shard. At current, the happenings tag is only good if you want to try print the nation's happenings, however if you want to find a list of regions nations previously moved to, or who they've most recently endorsed, it is a chore at best. And offset or range tag on the happenings would be appreciate as well.

[Letoilenoir]

Question: When using the shards this

Code: Select all

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?nation=letoilenoir&q=name

counts as one call to the API, correct?

Does this:

Code: Select all

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?nation=letoilenoir&q=name+wa

constitute two calls, or does it still qualify as 1?

[Letoilenoir]

I'm probably missing something obvious. I want to track current region of nation,WA status, endorsements, and wehther a nation is active (as in not CTE).

I figured I could just grab the nation daily data dump but it seems to be missing endorsements.
This means I'd have to make a ton of API calls to gather this information.

Even if I just restricted my interest to my region itt would take several hundred calls. I can't afford to do that with the current rate limits.

Ideally endorsements would be present in the daily data dump. I don't need the data to be dynamic, just gathered once a day.

If there is another obvious solution please feel free to suggest it.

Cheers!

Okay, this is the list of nations in you region via http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api ... numnations

REGION id="asia">
<NUMNATIONS>169</NUMNATIONS>
<NATIONS>
sebytania:lady_rose:qudrath:the_derrak_quadrant:etc,etc...........
</NATIONS>
</REGION>

This this is the list of all WA members pulled from the API:
<WA council="1">
<NUMNATIONS>22475</NUMNATIONS>
<MEMBERS>
--camila--,--neo-america--,--the_united_kingdom,-adipose_3,-aeros-,-arstotzka,-ebola-,-echolilia-,etc, etc............
</MEMBERS>
</WA>

Logically if you compare the two lists(populate 2 seperate arrays and use the a match function), any nation that is not on both is not in the WA.

As a result if you are tracking who is endorsing who then you only need to make calls on those that match, which shold reduce the number of calls made

Populate a third array with the nations that match and you're mostly there

You could then do something similar using the memberlog as suggested above

The first question is whether a php script can process this first task quick enough for your needs, assuming that you want to go the script route of course.

[Ballotonia]

Question: When using the shards this

Code: Select all

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?nation=letoilenoir&q=name

counts as one call to the API, correct?

Does this:

Code: Select all

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?nation=letoilenoir&q=name+wa

constitute two calls, or does it still qualify as 1?

Each http call qualifies as one call, regardless of how many + blah blah you tack onto it to get more information within that one call.

Ballotonia