In our previous post we discussed representing TV shows data as a graph using objects and their relations. In this post, we’ll see how to gather the information needed for our trivia game. There are a few websites that allow you to follow up on the show you watch, such as Rotten Tomatoes and TheTvDB. I’ve decided to start my work with TvMaze, mainly because they have a simple API that is easy to use, and which provides me with a good starting point for my data.
Let’s start by defining a new class:
public class ShowListing
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
}
With that, we can start retrieving the list of shows from TvMaze:
var hasMore = true;
var pageNum = 6;
var webClient = new WebClient();
do
{
string url;
if (pageNum > 0)
{
url = $"http://api.tvmaze.com/shows? Page={pageNum}";
}
else
{
url = "http://api.tvmaze.com/shows";
}
var data = webClient.DownloadString(new Uri(url));
var pagedSearch = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<ShowListing[]>(data);
hasMore = pagedSearch.Length > 0;
foreach (var serie in pagedSearch)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Show: {serie.name} (Id: {serie.id}");
}
pageNum++;
// We'll add a delay, so as not to overload the TvMaze servers and get throttled
Thread.Sleep(100);
} while (hasMore);
We now have a list of TV shows, and their Id. You can find the object model I’ve created using Visual Studio’s Paste Special feature in the following code:
public class SingleSearch
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public string type { get; set; }
public string language { get; set; }
public string[] genres { get; set; }
public string status { get; set; }
public int? runtime { get; set; }
public string premiered { get; set; }
//public Schedule schedule { get; set; }
//public Rating rating { get; set; }
public int? weight { get; set; }
public Network network { get; set; }
public Externals externals { get; set; }
public Image image { get; set; }
public string summary { get; set; }
public int? updated { get; set; }
public Links _links { get; set; }
public Embedded _embedded { get; set; }
}
public class ShowListing
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
}
public class Schedule
{
public string time { get; set; }
public string[] days { get; set; }
}
public class Rating
{
public float? average { get; set; }
}
public class Network
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public Country country { get; set; }
}
public class Country
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string code { get; set; }
public string timezone { get; set; }
}
public class Externals
{
public int? tvrage { get; set; }
public int? thetvdb { get; set; }
public string imdb { get; set; }
}
public class Image
{
public string medium { get; set; }
public string original { get; set; }
}
public class Links
{
public Self self { get; set; }
public PreviousEpisode previousepisode { get; set; }
}
public class Self
{
public string href { get; set; }
}
public class PreviousEpisode
{
public string href { get; set; }
}
public class Embedded
{
public Cast[] cast { get; set; }
public Season[] seasons { get; set; }
}
public class Cast
{
public Person person { get; set; }
public Character character { get; set; }
}
public class Person
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public Image image { get; set; }
public Links _links { get; set; }
}
public class Character
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public Image image { get; set; }
public Links _links { get; set; }
}
public class Season
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
public int? number { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public int? episodeOrder { get; set; }
public string premiereDate { get; set; }
public string endDate { get; set; }
public Network network { get; set; }
public Image image { get; set; }
public string summary { get; set; }
public Links _links { get; set; }
}
public class People
{
public int id { get; set; }
public string url { get; set; }
public string name { get; set; }
public Image image { get; set; }
public Links _links { get; set; }
}
public class CastCredits
{
public CastCredit[] Property1 { get; set; }
}
public class CastCredit
{
public CastCreditLinks _links { get; set; }
}
public class CastCreditLinks
{
public CreditsShow show { get; set; }
public CreditsCharacter character { get; set; }
}
public class CreditsShow
{
public string href { get; set; }
}
public class CreditsCharacter
{
public string href { get; set; }
}
We can now retrieve the information about a series based on its name or id:
// Use one of the following
string name = "";
string id = "";
string url;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
{
url = $"http://api.tvmaze.com/singlesearch/shows?q={name}embed[]=castembed[]=seasons";
}
else
{
url = $"http://api.tvmaze.com/shows/{id}?embed[]=castembed[]=seasons";
}
var data = webClient.DownloadString(new Uri(url));
var singleSearch = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SingleSearch>(data);
From here, it’s just about retrieving the information we need:
singleSearch.premieredYear when show premieredsingleSearch._embeddedsingleSearch._embedded.castList of castsingleSearch._embedded.cast[].personActor playing charactersingleSearch._embedded.cast[].person.imageImage of the actor
singleSearch._embedded.cast[].characterCharactersingleSearch._embedded.cast[].character.imageImage of the character
singleSearch._embedded.seasonsList of seasonssingleSearch._embedded.season[].imageImage of season
In the next post, we’ll see where we can get taglines and quotes for the shows.