[Sergio Tapia]

CherryTomato

CherryTomato makes using information provided by RottenTomatoes.com very simple. It's aim is to allow developers to quickly and safely create powerful applications with the JSON api provided for free by RottenTomatoes.

Full C# POCO objects allow you to concentrate on creating a great application and not parsing random JSON from a source.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

CherryTomato is proudly powered by the phenomenal library JSON.Net provided for free by James Newton.

http://james.newtonk...s/json-net.aspx


Introduction to CherryTomato

    string apiKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ApiKey"];
    var tomatoe = new Tomatoe(apiKey);
 
    //Numerical ID in this case is 9818.
    var movie = tomatoe.FindMovieById(9818);
   
    Console.WriteLine(movie.Name);
    Console.WriteLine(movie.Year);
    foreach (var rating in movie.Ratings)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("{0} Rating: {1}", rating.Type, rating.Score);
    }

    Console.ReadKey();

Please report any bugs you may find. If you report it, I'll fix it and we can all benefit from a better library.

This post has been edited by Sergio Tapia: 18 April 2011 - 12:56 PM

[Curtis Rutland]

Our libraries look strikingly similar, even to the point of using the same name for MovieSearchResult. Wow. I'll be posting mine tonight.

I used a little more LINQ, and more static methods, but that's about all the difference.

This post has been edited by Curtis Rutland: 18 April 2011 - 01:09 PM

[Nakor]

My library is similar in some regards, obviously since we're dealing with the same api, but has some distinct differences. For one I am not using any 3rd party libraries. I'll post some of my code when I get home

[Curtis Rutland]

So you're manually parsing the JSON? Nice. More effort than I was willing to expend.

[Core]

Just pointing this out, but there is a built-in JSON parser in .NET Framework.

http://msdn.microsof...son(VS.95).aspx

It's a Silverlight assembly, by the way.

[Sergio Tapia]

Wow, it's great that so many people are working on the same thing. Let's all contribute to the same lib then, I know Curtis is familiar with Github, how about you Nakor?

Let's collaborate on CherryTomato and make it the best RT lib out there for .NET.

[Nakor]

There is also the JavascriptSerializer class in System.Web.Extensions, which is what I used to convert the JSON into objects.

First, the Movie class and the smaller classes it uses

Spoiler

    public class Movie
    {
        public int id { get; set; }
        public string title { get; set; }
        public int? year { get; set; }
        public List<string> genres { get; set; }
        public string mpaa_rating { get; set; }
        public int? runtime { get; set; }
        public Release_Dates release_dates { get; set; }
        public Ratings ratings { get; set; }
        public string synopsis { get; set; }
        public Poster posters { get; set; }
        public List<Cast> abridged_cast { get; set; }
        public List<Director> abridged_directors { get; set; }
        public Links links { get; set; }
    }

    public class Ratings
    {
        public string critics_score { get; set; }
        public string audience_score { get; set; }
    }

    public class Links
    {
        public string alternate { get; set; }
        public string cast { get; set; }
        public string reviews { get; set; }
        public string self { get; set; }
        public string next { get; set; }
        public string previous { get; set; }
    }

    public class Release_Dates
    {
        public string theater { get; set; }
        public string dvd { get; set; }
    }

    public class Cast
    {
        public string name { get; set; }
        public List<string> characters { get; set; }
    }

    public class Director
    {
        public string name { get; set; }
    }

    public class Poster
    {
        public string thumbnail { get; set; }
        public string profile { get; set; }
        public string detailed { get; set; }
        public string original { get; set; }
    }

The MovieList class

Spoiler

    public class MovieList
    {
        public int total { get; set; }
        public List<Movie> movies { get; set; }
        public Links links { get; set; }
        public string link_template { get; set; }
    }

And here's the class that provides access to the data

Spoiler

public class SpoiledKetchup
    {
        #region URL STRINGS
        private const string MovieSearch_Url = @"http://api.rottentomatoes.com/api/public/v1.0/movies.json?apikey={3}&q={0}&page={1}&page_limit={2}";
        private const string List_Url = @"http://api.rottentomatoes.com/api/public/v1.0/lists.json?apikey={3}q={0}&page={1}&page_limit={2}";
        private const string MovieInfo_Url = @"http://api.rottentomatoes.com/api/public/v1.0/movies/{0}.json?apikey={1}";
        #endregion

        private string API_KEY = "";

        public SpoiledKetchup(string api_key)
        {
            this.API_KEY = api_key;
        }

        public MovieList MovieSearch(string title="", int index=0, int limit=10)
        {
            string formatted_url = String.Format(MovieSearch_Url, title, index, limit, API_KEY);
            return JSONToObject<MovieList>(formatted_url);
        }

        public Movie GetMovieInfo(int id)
        {
            string formatted_url = string.Format(MovieInfo_Url, id, API_KEY);
            return JSONToObject<Movie>(formatted_url);
        }

        private T JSONToObject<T>(string url)
        {
            using (var client = new WebClient())
            {
                string jsonString = client.DownloadString(url).Replace("\n", "");
                return new JavascriptSerializer(
                            new SimpleTypeResolver()
                        ).Deserialize<T>(jsonString);
            }
        }

The JavascriptSerializer.Deserialize() method does all the work of converting the JSON string into the object, no parsing needed on my part.

[Sergio Tapia]

The main downside I see when using that method, is that you no longer have a way to manually shape your POCO objects to make them seem natural.

Unless I'm mistaken.

[Nakor]

To manually shape it in what way?

[Curtis Rutland]

Check my sig for the link to my github repo, the project is called RottenTomatoes.NET (yes, I know I'm unimaginative). What I've done differently than you, Sergio, is include Review and Full Cast support, as well as providing easy access to getting the next search results. Also, you can take a movie created from the Search, and have it fill itself in.

I've also added asynchronous versions of most of the methods, with events to be called when they're completed.

Also, I've marked the classes as DataContracts, and the members as DataMembers for easy WCF Serialization.

Take a look at my project and see what you think.

[Sergio Tapia]

Yeah you seem to be doing some of the things I had planned except for the WCF bit, I didn't plan on providing that for now.

Most of the things that I have missing I'm going to add tonight though.

Edit: I also think I'm going to completely rewrite the search area of my lib. If it takes more than a 10 seconds to understand what's going on, that's a glaring sign that the code needs to be refactored and made beautiful. And I love beautiful code.

If anyone reading actually likes the act of coding, you need to read this at least once every couple of years. It always gives something more.

Clean Code.

This post has been edited by Sergio Tapia: 18 April 2011 - 05:58 PM

[Core]

Curtis, I already told this to Sergio and just to point out - it would be great when methods that have the same idea behind them have similar naming. So, for example, you have this:

public static Movie GetById
public static MovieSearchResult Search

Why not name these with something like GetMovieById and GetMovieByQuery?

[Curtis Rutland]

Took me a sec to realize you were talking to me, lol.

Couldn't hurt. I'd have to be GetMoviesByQuery or BySearch, since it returns a collection, but it's a good idea.

[Sergio Tapia]

I significantly modified the Parser.cs class and it's now a lot easier to read and understand what it's doing. I'm proud of this!

/// <summary>
/// Parse a JSON string representing a Movie item
/// </summary>
/// <param name="json">The JSON string to be parsed</param>
/// <returns>Movie object</returns>
public static Movie ParseMovie(string json)
{
    JObject jObject = JObject.Parse(json);
    Movie movie = new Movie();

    movie.RottenTomatoesId = ParseRottenTomatoesId(jObject["id"]);
    movie.Title = ParseTitle(jObject["title"]);
    movie.Year = ParseYear(jObject["year"]);
    movie.MpaaRating = ParseMpaaRating(jObject["mpaa_rating"]);
    movie.Runtime = ParseRunTime(jObject["runtime"]);
    movie.Synopsis = ParseSynopsis(jObject["synopsis"]);
    movie.Directors = ParseDirectors(jObject["abridged_directors"]);
    movie.Genres = ParseGenres(jObject["genres"]);
    movie.Cast = ParseCastMembers(jObject["abridged_cast"]);
    movie.Links = ParseLinks(jObject["links"]);
    movie.Posters = ParsePosters(jObject["posters"]);
    movie.Ratings = ParseRatings(jObject["ratings"]);
    movie.ReleaseDates = ParseReleaseDates(jObject["release_dates"]);

    return movie;
}

I have to some testing to do tonight and by tomorrow it should be 'production' ready.

I had a lot of help from Nakor and I really enjoy collaborating with him.

Use it, break it, fork it and let's make this one kick ass lib. Check my signature for a link to the Github.

This post has been edited by Sergio Tapia: 20 April 2011 - 05:59 PM

[T3hC13h]

Sergio Tapia, on 20 April 2011 - 08:57 PM, said:

Use it, break it, fork it and let's make this one kick ass lib. Check my signature for a link to the Github.

If you replace your movie class with this:

namespace CherryTomato.Entities
{
    public class Movie : IComparable
    {
        public int id { get; set; }
        public string title { get; set; }
        public int year { get; set; }
        public string mpaa_rating { get; set; }
        public int? runtime { get; set; }
        public string synopsis { get; set; }
        public Dictionary<string,DateTime> release_dates { get; set; }
        public Dictionary<string,int> ratings { get; set; }
        public List<string> genres { get; set; }
        public List<Director> abridged_directors { get; set; }
        public List<CastMember> abridged_cast { get; set; }
        public Dictionary<string, string> links { get; set; }
        public Dictionary<string, string> posters { get; set; }

        public int CompareTo(object obj)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }
        public class CastMember
        {
            public string name { get; set; }
            public List<string> characters { get; set; }

            public CastMember()
            {
                characters = new List<string>();
            }
        }
        public class Director
        {
            public string name { get; set; }

        }
    }
}

All of your parsing code can be replaced with:

Movie m = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Movie>(json);