How can I query for Issue Numbers more efficiently? - API Developers

#1 Posted by cbanack (48 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

Hi,

I'm working on a third party app that uses the ComicVine API.

I'm concerned that my app is putting much more load on the ComicVine servers than it should, because I cannot figure out a good way to do a very simple, very common query.    Specifically: imagine I have an series name, and an issue number, e.g. "Conan the Barbarian", #234.

First I do a query for "conan the barbarian", and I choose the most appropriate series from the list of series IDs that are returned. Then, I do a new query to get more details about that specific series.   Something like:

http://api.comicvine.com/volume/2471/?api_key=<apikeyhere>&format=xml&field_list=issues

This returns me a nice list of all the available issue IDs for that series.   But it doesn't tell me what issue number each of those IDs corresponds to.   So if I want to find issue number 234, I'm forced to go through every single issue ID in that series, querying each one individually for its issue data, until I find the one that corresponds to issue #234!

This seems brutally inefficient, but I cannot find any other way to get at the details for a specific issue of a comic book, given that starting information I described above.

Does anyone have any ideas for a better way that I can do this?   Thanks!

#2 Posted by Skiski (11 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

I have the same problem.

For the moment, I do exactly as you and I save the obtained data, so I don't have to query multiple times for the same issue. But it is not a very nice solution.

#3 Posted by HPNeo (4 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

I had the same problem, and I realized a (nasty) solution for that:

First, use a Google Custom Search Engine to create a search engine wich only searches in ComicVine Issue pages. Then get the pages urls with regex, and obtain the Issue ID (For example, for "Amazing Spider-Man #620", the url would be " http://www.comicvine.com/the-amazing-spider-man-mysterio-smoke-and-mirrors-part-3/37-196462/". The last group of numbers is the Issue ID). Finally, use the ComicVine API with the Issue ID for get all the data.

It isn't the best way to solve this problem, but works.

I hope have been helpfull (and my apologizes if this text isn't understandable, I don't speak English very well) (:

#4 Posted by Skiski (11 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

It's perfectly clear.

I may use this solution because I've discovered that the issues in a volume are not necessary in chronological order. For my application, to avoid to download every details of every issue, I only download the informations of the first 10, then if I need I go to the 10 following, and so on. But if they are not in chronological order, it's less interesting...

Having the number of the issues in the volume page would be so useful for everyone.

#5 Posted by cbanack (48 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

Yes, that is a nasty solution--but also a very clever one.

I think I may do the same thing, at least until whomever is in charge of the ComicVine api's can provide us with a more efficient search method!

When you say "only searches the comic vine issue pages", which url did you set the custom google search to use?

#6 Posted by HPNeo (4 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

@cbanack: I use " http://www.comicvine.com/*37-*". You can see an example here.

#7 Posted by cbanack (48 posts) - 3 years, 2 months ago - Show Bio

@HPNeo: Thanks!