Help understand how to use API and display it on my site

[SennNathan]

I know basic php and html and i want to add wolframalpha.com API to my site this is the link to where you can request the api and see what kind of format its in.

http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/explorer.html

 

I need a simple code that will request the api and display the results

 

Thanks for any help i could really use it right now

[gristoi]

Read the documentation:

http://products.wolframalpha.com/developers/

[SennNathan]

Ok i read the doc's and they didnt really go over how to display the results on my site only how to request the results then i found http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/libraries.html and it has a sample php code but when i uploaded it to my server it didn't work i changed my api id and read the docs that came with it still no luck

[mentalist]

From a quick search I found this thread which gives an example:

http://community.wolframalpha.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=78407

 

Then from a quick scan of the API docs, i'm guessing its set up around a simple http request using GET values and returns some kind of xml...???

* I saw a mention of JSON but nothing looked like it so...

** In principle they state that they use REST architecture (basically http requests returning xml (or similar))

 

http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/documentation.html

[SennNathan]

Ive read all this but im yet to find an example of how to display the returned xml data to my site

[SennNathan]

I also dont understand why there php example didn't work when i uploaded it to my site http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/libraries.html

[mentalist]

Ive read all this but im yet to find an example of how to display the returned xml data to my site

 

XML is pretty standard stuff and there's many parsers out there, here's where you might start:

http://php.net/manual/en/simplexml.examples-basic.php

[mentalist]

I also dont understand why there php example didn't work when i uploaded it to my site http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/libraries.html

 

What does "didn't work" mean? Were there errors, warnings, if so did they say where from? i.e. did the server say forbidden (maybe file permissions), or php throw an error, do you have php show errors on? etc, etc...

[SennNathan]

No it dont do anything when i try and search

[mentalist]

No it dont do anything when i try and search

 

I haven't dl'd this api so you're going to have to show some code...

[SennNathan]

Ok you can see them all here http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/libraries.html

[mentalist]

Ok you can see them all here http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/libraries.html

 

Yeah I knew that!

[SennNathan]

I know this is probably super weak but im still new to all this

<?php 

$request = 'http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKAERX-QJJAE7L2G6&input=albert%20einstein&format=html';
$response  = file_get_contents($request);
$xml = simplexml_load_file('$response');
print_r($xml)
?>

[mentalist]

Right, you need to set for errors/warnings, see below:

 

 

<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors',E_ALL);

//$request = 'http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKWERR-FJJAE7L2L6&input=albert%20einstein&format=html';
$request = "http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKWERR-FJJAE7L2L6&input=albert einstein";
//$request = "http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKWERR-FJJAE7L2L6&input=albert einstein&format=xml";

/*
$response  = file_get_contents($request, FALSE);
echo $response;
//$xml = simplexml_load_file('$response');
//print_r($xml)
*/

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $request);
$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

//$xml = simplexml_load_file($response);
//print_r($xml)
echo $response;

?>

 

Right, when I used file_get_contents() I got errors, lots of questions on it out there, so I quickly tried using curl instead and it works... BUT I then ran it through simple xml parser and it kept dumping out, I believe at the <img /> tag...

 

 

BTW i've amended your id in this post

[mentalist]

Not being satisfied...

 

 

<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors',E_ALL);

//$request = 'http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKAERX-QJJAE7L2G6&input=albert%20einstein&format=html';
$request = "http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKAERX-QJJAE7L2G6&input=albert einstein";
//$request = "http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKAERX-QJJAE7L2G6&input=albert einstein&format=MathML";
//$request = "http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKAERX-QJJAE7L2G6&input=albert einstein&format=Plaintext";

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $request);
$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($response);        //    <-- NOTICE DIFFERENCE HERE
var_dump($xml->pod->subpod->img);
?>

 

* Adding no format defaults to Plaintext

http://products.wolframalpha.com/api/documentation.html#3

[SennNathan]

Ok this is defiantly getting better now i just need to request the html format and display it so it looks like it does on their site thanks for your help this is a big help.

[mentalist]

That's already there...

 

 

<?php
$request = 'http://api.wolframalpha.com/v2/query?appid=YKWERR-FJJAE7L2L6&input=albert%20einstein&format=html';

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $request);
$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

echo $response;
?>

[SennNathan]

Ok i figured it out here is my link http://yousearch.mobi/wolfram.php now last thing is there anyway to cut out  were it has the ]]> .

[mentalist]

Use regex (regular expressions) in some way, I believe there's a specific forum for it here... (or go through the xml and only display the bits you really want!)

[SennNathan]

Thanks for your help!