• Working With APIs

• Set up Node/Express app
• Set up form & route for a movie search
• Have handler call OMDB API
• Render results in a template

• Do you know what API stands for?
• Do you know of any APIs?
• Have we used any APIs in class yet?
• Have we had our client-side code talk to our server-side code?

Programs talking to (i.e., interfacing with) each other.

• Browser <-> Browser (e.g., Your JS calls Google Maps)
• Browser <-> Server (e.g., Your JS calls your server)
• Server <-> Server (e.g., Your server calls someone else's)
• Server <-> Database (e.g., Even your database has an API)

Where else in computing do we see the term "interface"?

• GUI = Graphical User Interface = [U]sers interacting with programs
• API = Application Programming Interface = [P]rograms interacting with programs

• Need to know the term API to be a programmer :)
• In order for your software to be useful, it's going to have to talk to other software.

• document.getElementById()
• window.onload = function () {}

app.get("/", function (req, res) {
    res.send("Hello, World!");
})

app.get("/add/:x/:y", function (req, res) {
    // ...
});

http://expressjs.com/4x/api.html

https://dev.twitter.com/rest/public

Your app.js file created an API that your client-side code communicated with. It, however, may not have been a very well defined API :)

Create an Express site that displays a form to the user. It should have one field that accepts a search term. Use an Express route to handle the form submission. When the form is submitted, your handler should make a request to the API from http://www.omdbapi.com/ for movies matching the search term.

• Create an Express App.
• Create a route for the home page ("/").
• The home page should use an .ejs template to display a <form>.
• The form should have an input box that accepts a search term.
• When the user submits the form, create an Express route to catch it.
• Use the request module to make a request to http://omdbapi.com for movies matching the search term.
• Process the JSON results and display movie info on the page using another .ejs template.

• http://omdbapi.com/
• https://github.com/mikeal/request