Documenting a non-optimal behavior of the NYPL Menus API with regard to links

api_reponse-2014-10-11.json

{
  "lowest_price": null,
  "links": [
    {
      "href": "http://menus.nypl.org/api/dishes",
      "rel": "index"
    },
    {
      "href": "http://menus.nypl.org/api/dishes/103372/menus",
      "rel": "menus"
    }
  ],
  "description": null,
  "id": 103372,
  "menus_appeared": 4,
  "last_appeared": 1892,
  "highest_price": null,
  "first_appeared": 1887,
  "times_appeared": 4,
  "name": "Blauwe Landtongsche Oesters"
}

note.md

Current behavior:

  "links": [
    {
      "href": "http://menus.nypl.org/api/dishes",
      "rel": "index"
    },
    {
      "href": "http://menus.nypl.org/api/dishes/103372/menus",
      "rel": "menus"
    }
  ]

Desired behavior:

  "links": [
    {
      "href": "http://api.menus.nypl.org/dishes",
      "rel": "index"
    },
    {
      "href": "http://api.menus.nypl.org/dishes/103372/menus",
      "rel": "menus"
    }
  ]

The http://menus.nypl.org/api/ form gets me in trouble with the bot/crawler protection. Also, the second form is what is given in the API docs

talk_to_menus_api.py

#

import os
import re
import json
import time
import requests

payload = {"token" : os.environ['MENUS_API_KEY']} 

#Picking a dish at random
dish = 'http://api.menus.nypl.org/dishes/103372'

req = requests.get(dish, params=payload)
if req.status_code == 200:
        resp = json.loads(req.content.decode())
        
print(json.dumps(resp, indent=2))

talk_to_menus_api_patched.py

# coding: utf-8

import os
import re
import json
import time
import requests

payload = {"token" : os.environ['MENUS_API_KEY']} 

#Picking a dish at random
dish = 'http://api.menus.nypl.org/dishes/103372'

req = requests.get(dish, params=payload)
if req.status_code == 200:
            resp = json.loads(req.content.decode())
            
print(json.dumps(resp, indent=2))

follow_link = resp['links'][0]['href']
req2 = requests.get(follow_link, params=payload)
if req2.status_code == 200:
        resp2 = json.loads(req2.content.decode())

print(json.dumps(resp2, indent=2))

Cool. Now it's much easier to follow the links returned by the API to related resources.