API

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mcanonic
Registered User
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 4:17 pm

API

Post by mcanonic »

Hi,
I'm new and I hope that I picked up the right board for this kind of question.

I'm looking for a library to run some basic task on an external phpbb site. Tasks like:
- list of the boards available
- date of the last post in a specific board

I'm new in this kind of programming area and I'm wondering if there are any library/API to start with.

Looking around on Internet I find out various solutions but I'm wondering which is the best one. I meant, someone proposed some HTML parser (BeautifulSoup) or a browser emulator (mechanize) and I'm really confused. Finally, the restful API

Where do you suggest me to start. Also, a very simple example in order to obtain the list of boards available would be very useful.

Thanks,
Massimo

CHItA
Development Team
Development Team
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:43 pm
Location: Budapest, Hungary

Re: API

Post by CHItA »

At the moment, phpBB doesn't provide a REST API. This means that what you try to do is a rather difficult task. You might use a HTML parser, however, more than likely that you won't end up with a generic tool that could be used with any phpBB board. For these reasons there is no simple example that I could give you, and this topic is pretty much out of scope in this context at this board (I'm not quite sure whether this is a correct sentence or not).

mcanonic
Registered User
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 4:17 pm

Re: API

Post by mcanonic »

Thanks.
Are you aware of any alternatives to REST API, in order to obtain data concerning what I'm lookng for. May be crawler is a viable solution? If yes, any suggestion concerning the "right" crawler for phpbb?
Best,
Massimo

aleha
Registered User
Posts: 143
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 2:19 am

Re: API

Post by aleha »

I remember talking about it with Nicofuma on IRC. REST API is a possibility for 3.3. It will also give a great boost towards creating mobile applications for a phpBB board.

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