Python! Working with APIs | Lectures 19

Let’s Start Python Programming For Beginners to Advanced. Working with APIs, Lectures 19

🐍 Lecture 19: Working with APIs

🎯 Goal

By the end of this lecture, you will:

• Understand what an API is and why it’s useful.
• Know how to make HTTP requests in Python using the requests library.
• Be able to get data from a real-world API (like weather or news).
• Build a simple weather checker or joke fetcher app.

🧠 What Is an API?

An API (Application Programming Interface) is like a waiter between your program and another service (like a website or database).

You ask for something — like “What’s the weather today?” — and the API goes and gets the answer for you.

Real-Life Examples:

• Weather apps use weather APIs.
• News websites use news APIs.
• Games use leaderboard APIs to show scores.

🛠️ Setting Up – Install requests

We’ll use the requests library to talk to APIs.

Install it using:

pip install requests

Then import it in your code:

import requests

🔗 Making a GET Request

The most common way to get data from an API is using a GET request .

Example:

import requests

response = requests.get("https://api.quotable.io/random") 
data = response.json()

print("Here's a random quote:")
print(f'"{data["content"]}" — {data["author"]}')

This gets a random quote from the Quotable API .

☀️ Mini Project: Get the Current Weather

Let’s build a Weather Checker App using a free weather API.

📝 Sign up at weatherapi.com or openweathermap.org to get your free API key.

Code Example:

import requests

API_KEY = "your_api_key_here"
city = input("Enter city name: ")

url = f"http://api.weatherapi.com/v1/current.json?key={API_KEY}&q={city}"

response = requests.get(url)
data = response.json()

if "error" in data:
    print("Error:", data["error"]["message"])
else:
    temp = data["current"]["temp_c"]
    condition = data["current"]["condition"][0]["text"]
    print(f"The current temperature in {city} is {temp}°C and the weather is {condition}.")

👉 Sample Output:

Enter city name: London
The current temperature in London is 15°C and the weather is Partly cloudy.

😄 Fun Project: Fetch a Random Joke

Use the Joke API to get a joke:

import requests

response = requests.get("https://v2.jokeapi.dev/joke/Any") 
data = response.json()

if data["type"] == "single":
    print(data["joke"])
else:
    print(data["setup"])
    print("...", data["delivery"])

📡 Understanding HTTP Status Codes

When you make a request, the server responds with a status code :

Check the status code before processing data:

if response.status_code == 200:
    data = response.json()
else:
    print("Failed to get data.")

🧪 Try It Yourself!

Try building one of these:

1. A quote generator that gives a new quote every time.
2. A random dog image viewer using https://dog.ceo/dog-api/
3. A fun fact generator using https://uselessfacts.jsph.pl/

🚀 Challenge (Optional)

Make a News Headlines Reader using a news API like:

• newsapi.org
• https://gnews.io

Example:

API_KEY = "your_news_api_key"
url = f"https://gnews.io/api/v4/top-headlines?token={API_KEY}&lang=en"

response = requests.get(url)
data = response.json()

for article in data["articles"]:
    print("📰", article["title"])
    print("🔗", article["url"], "\n")v

🧒 Kids Corner

🧠 Imagine your robot friend can call up other robot friends and ask them questions, like “What’s the weather today?” or “Tell me a joke!”

🤖 Robot says:

I’m talking to my robot friends over the internet now!

📌 Summary

• An API lets your program talk to another service.
• Use the requests library to send HTTP requests.
• Most APIs return data in JSON format.
• You can build fun tools like weather apps, joke fetchers, and news readers.
• Always check the status code to know if your request worked.

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