Xml Api?

[borandi]

Will an API be available sometime soon? It would help immensely in deciding what hardware a team should bench for the most profit.

Such as api.php?hw=Core+i7+990X&team=BenchTec+UK&benchmark=spi1m

Basically I'm asking if HWBot can open up parts of the database for direct query. This is similar to how EA opened up BF2/2142 databases so people could create their own team leaderboards or probe the data. I made one or two websites from that so that people in my teams could sort how good they were in terms of k/d, or dogtags et al - http://www.borandi.co.uk/BC2XS is one example.

In terms of search, I think there are plenty of smart things we could do with the data. For example:

I want to directly compare my results with XYZ. I want to see where his globals are, where his HW points are, for a direct comparison.
I want to see the UK records for the particular cards I have.
I want to see how many points I have in each benchmark for the 4870X2, and see what position how many marks I need to get at least 20 HW points.

The list goes on. Possibilities for team comparisons more involved and more indepth than what HWBot currently does now is only limited by the number of ideas.

If you could throw your weight behind my (long-term) request for an API, it would be awesome and I'd aim to create some neat little tools to help everyone out.

[richba5tard]

There was a discussion not too long ago about what should be in the XML API. If you can be more specific about what should be in the API, we can plan it I the next feature release.

[borandi]

You can have several APIs:

Benchmark results api
User data api
Team data api
Competition data api

In terms of the benchmark api, the following tags I would like available and to filter:

User
Benchmark
2D/3D
Team
Country
Hardware name
Hardware Type (CPU/GPU)
Number of cores/GPUs

Output data should be all the benchmark results that qualify. You can have a flag for the level of detail required in each output - so output=min for minimum, output=reg for regular, output=full for full, default as minimin. So the full output of each benchmark result should have the following data:

Name
Team
Country
Hardware (CPU, GPU, motherboard, mem, details, counts)
Score
Position
Points (HW, Global, WR)
Direct Link to result
Direct Link to pictures

I'm sure I'll think of more, but along those lines.

[borandi]

So what you currently have for your search function, which by the look of the code is a POST query to /search with a ?q= tag which filters based on at least a two character input, things like that to help the rest of us to build OC tools, but in an XML or JSON api format.

Note, EA have done this for BF for the last few iterations, but their user base is many times bigger, so I doubt the HWBot servers would be hammered that much. It may require redirection to a new machine that keeps a 24hr old copy of the db rather than straight from the main db if you think that's an issue.

[Tsunamijuan]

Right now with the changes in REV 4, it would be nice to have an api for sub sections of hardware that would be accessed.

Like a list of
Video cards by chipset+mem capacity
Motherboards by chipset
Cpu's

If Those where made accessable it would make the lifes of people using the external Api's alot easier.

Making things searchable from the api like posted at the top of he post is nice, however it opens up the possiblity that are just gonna deep link and duplicate the information else where while bypassing Advertisements.(which is no bueno)

Other thing that would be nice speaking of advertisement is that if there was a api of current sponors for those that choose to reproduce information in selected sections form this site. That way they can include some of the sponors that are support the hwbot (this isn't to different than showing the hwbot name in quotes on forums really)

[borandi]

Making things searchable from the api like posted at the top of he post is nice, however it opens up the possiblity that are just gonna deep link and duplicate the information else where while bypassing Advertisements.(which is no bueno)


I've been part of communities where APIs have been available (BF2, 360voice), and even though all the info is there, it's never really an issue. Most of these places ask you to link to the site (put a 'Powered by hwbot.org' link on each page the API is displayed) where the data is from.

[borandi]

Any further internal discussion regarding an API? If it's XML or JSON, not fussed :) Just want to create a bevvy of team tools that tell us what to bench!

[borandi]

Monthly bump, just to make sure it might be on the radar.

[richba5tard]

http://bugs.hwbot.org/browse/HWBOT-519

The feature request won't get lost, but we were not able to add new features in august & september due to office renovations and birth of daughter. Development will resume mid octobre.

[borandi]

Sure thing - I know things are hectic, but reassuring requests are being tracked. Good luck with the office and the little one.

[borandi]

Epic bump for an epic idea. I have plenty of ideas!

[borandi]

Example, here's what I did with the Battlefield Bad Company 2 XML API:

http://www.borandi.co.uk/BC2XS

http://www.overclock.net/content/type/61/id/1127127/

But with access to submissions and points data, lots of interesting things can be made

[GENiEBEN]

Buzz me when API is available so I can build an app.

[El Gappo]

Looking forward to it :)

[veblen]

This would be a welcome addition to the bot. :)

[Massman]

Okay - I've moved this to our R5 planning. R5 development starts this friday :).