MarvelApi

Summary

This project can be found at: https://github.com/bodzilla/MarvelApi

This is a .NET console application which has the following functionalities:

• Returns the ids of the top 10 Marvel characters using Marvel's API. A top character is one with the most number of appearances on comics and stories.
• Returns details of a single Marvel character's powers scraped from Marvel's Wiki, this also includes general character details using Marvel's API.
• Returns a translation of the single Marvel character's details using Google's Translate API.
• All objects return some analytics regarding the requests made.
• Able to use gzip compression to improve performance.
• Able to cache results to improve performance.
• Warnings and errors are logged to a text file with full stack traces.

Setting up dependencies

Marvel API

In order to use Marvel's API, you will need to create a developer account, which will generate your API keys:

1. Sign up here: https://developer.marvel.com
2. After activating your account, you can get your API keys from: https://developer.marvel.com/account
3. Retrieve your public and private keys and store them in a safe location. Do not share them with unauthorised users.
4. Your account will be limited to 3000 calls a day - keep this in mind should you notice regular API fails.

Google Translate API

In order to use Google's Translate API, you will need to sign up and activate a project, which will generate a JSON containing some credentails, including your API keys. This API is not free but new accounts can be activated to be credited with 200GBP cost-free:

1. Sign up for a Google account here: https://accounts.google.com/signup/v2
2. In order to activate your 200GBP free credit, you will need to add a billing account here: https://console.cloud.google.com/billing
3. After activating your billing account, you can now create a project to use Google's API here: https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/quickstart
4. Click on Set up a project and give your project an appropriate name.
5. Click on Download private key as JSON and store in a safe location. Do not share this with unauthorised users.

Building and configuration

Now that you have all the access points in place, you can now build the application and configure it:

1. In Visual Studio, navigate to MarvelApi and load MarvelApi.sln.
2. Right click on the solution and build the solution in Release mode. (Note: If the build fails, try again after a few seconds as it may take a little while to download all the relevant packages).
3. You can now close down Visual Studio.
4. Navigate to MarvelApi\MarvelApi\bin\Release.
5. Open the configuration file MarvelApi.exe.config
6. For the Security configurations - fill these in appropriately.
7. Optionally, you can modify the Web/API configurations.

Running the application

Finally, you can run the application via a shell console. To run, simply run the program .\MonzoApi.exe followed by any of the below arguments in lower case:

Argument	Output	Format
marvel characters	Returns the ids of the top 10 Marvel characters using Marvel's API as well as total characters in the Marvel universe and total characters in comics and stories. A top character is one with the most number of appearances on comics and stories. (Note: if UseEtags setting is set to true, the initial call may take a while to return the request, but subsequent calls will be faster as this will use caching).	JSON
marvel characters {characterId}	Returns general details about a single Marvel character using Marvel's API given their character ID.	JSON
marvel powers {characterId}	Returns details of a single Marvel character's powers scraped from Marvel's Wiki, this also includes general character details using Marvel's API given the character ID.	JSON
marvel powers {characterId} {languageCode}	Returns a translated version of the single Marvel character's details using Google's Translate API given the character ID. The language code is in ISO-639-1 format. A full list can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes	JSON

Limitations

• Marvel's API can only be requested 3000 times a day due to limitations on free developer accounts.
• Be aware that every Google Translate API call will use your free credit - keep an eye on this.
• If using Etags (caching) - ensure that your program has read/write permissions on the directory it is deployed in, in order for this to work.
• Getting single character responses do not work for characters classed as teams, such as X-Men.
• Some text may not translate to your desired language due to limitations on Google's API to interpret certain words if they are connected, such as Spider-Sense.
• Error logs do not include invalid arguments as these are displayed on the console directly.