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Get API data from URL to display on html page


DizzyDan

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I am trying to build a basic tool to display someones congress representative via zipcode. 

The API that I am trying to use is offered for free via: https://whoismyrepresentative.com

The link to get the data via zipcode is: https://whoismyrepresentative.com/getall_mems.php?zip=31023

It can also be formatted for json like this: https://whoismyrepresentative.com/getall_mems.php?zip=31023&output=json

I have read a ton of articles on how to display this data but the trouble I am having is getting the data to show up at all.

My first attempt was based off w3schools example. When the button is clicked it should display the result in the empty div but when I replace the URL, it does not display. When you visit the URL directly the data is there. 

My JavaScript knowledge is fairly low so I will go line by line and maybe I am just misunderstanding something.

$(document).ready(function(){ 

Gets the document ready for some jquery

$("button").click(function(){ 

Sets up click function on `<button>`

$.getJSON("https://whoismyrepresentative.com/getall_mems.php?zip=31023&output=json", function(results){ 

I hope this is what gets the data from the API URL

$.each(results, function(i, field){ 

I'm not sure what this does but I am thinking this displays the field for 'results'

$("div").append(field + " ");

This will display the data in the empty `<div>` 

Full index.php code

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">

<head>

<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no">

<title>Find Your Representative</title>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.2.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    $("button").click(function(){
        $.getJSON("https://whoismyrepresentative.com/getall_mems.php?zip=31023&output=json", function(results){
            $.each(results, function(i, field){
                $("div").append(field + " ");
            });
        });
    });
});
</script>

</head>

<body>

<button>Get JSON data</button>

<div></div>

</body>
</html>

 

Edited by DizzyDan
Fix typos
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Just to update this:

So it seems this was a more complicated problem so I had to work this out in smaller pieces.

  • I was getting a CORS error because I was requesting the json from a different domain with jQuery, I learned that you can't do that...
    • With a sprinkle of PHP I was able to get the json data and feed it to a file on my server, so I guess that's like using my server as a proxy. This seemed to work.
  • I removed the click function and created a form where the user can enter their zipcode

This is probably sloppy but it did work!

index.php

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">

<head>

<title>Find Your Representative</title>

</head>

<body>

<form action="/results.php" method="get">

	<p>Enter Your Zipcode</p>

	<input name="zipcode" type="text" />

	<input type="submit" />

</form>

</body>
</html>

reps.php

<?php
	
	// Get zipcode from url (for my usage it will be requested from results.php)
	$_GET['zipcode'];

	// Make zipcode intp a variable so we can insert it into our API request link
	$zipcode = $_GET['zipcode'];

	// Variable for our request to the API with zipcode variable inserted into the link
	$jsonURL = "https://whoismyrepresentative.com/getall_mems.php?zip={$zipcode}&output=json";

	// This is the curl info needed to request the API data 
	$curl_handle = curl_init( $jsonURL );
	\curl_setopt($curl_handle, \CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
	
	// Variable for the received json data
	$jsonData = curl_exec($curl_handle);
	
	// print the data to the page
	echo $jsonData;

?>

results.php

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html lang="en-US">

<head>

<?php
  
  // Get zipcode from url sent by form on homepage
  $_GET['zipcode'];

  // Make zipcode intp a variable so we can insert it into our API request link
  $zipcode = $_GET['zipcode'];

  // I insert this directly into the url string in my js, not sure if that is the best approach but it did work!

?>

</head>

<body>

  <h1></h1>

  <div class="results">
  	
    <!-- Output area -->

  </div>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.2.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<script>

function setupPage() {
  loadJSONData();
}

function loadJSONData() {
  var user_zipcode = "<?php echo $zipcode; ?>"
  var json_url = "/reps.php?zipcode=" + user_zipcode;
  $.getJSON(json_url, addJsonToPage);
}

function addJsonToPage(jsonResults) {
  var representativeList = extractRepresentativeFromJsonResults(jsonResults);
  $.each(representativeList, addRepresentativeToPage);
}

function extractRepresentativeFromJsonResults(jsonObject) {
  return jsonObject.results;
}

function addRepresentativeToPage(arrayIndex, aRepresentative) {
  var divElementCollection = $("div.results");
  var repName = "<div class=\'name\'>" + aRepresentative.name + "</div>";
  var repPhone = "<div class=\'phone\'>" + aRepresentative.phone + "</div>";
  divElementCollection.append(repName);
  divElementCollection.append(repPhone);
}

$(document).ready(setupPage);

</script>

</body>
</html>

 

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