Saving JSON or XML API response to a Wordpress database

Question

I'm working on project and I'm trying to integrate a photographer's Flickr account with his Wordpress website. The idea is to sync the Wordpress website with his flickr.

I'm using the Flickr API to get his picures URLS, descriptions, tags and sets and display everyting. The problem is that for every visit I have to go through the whole API response and parse it. Have to extract all the links, tags, descriptions etc.

I'm looking for a way to "import" this API response (XML or JSON) to the wordpress database and work with this data. I'll just have the option to update the database (or maybe just a table on the database) once he updates something on his flickr account. This update doesn't need to be automatic.

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

The following is just a proof of concept and creates a menu item in the dashboard with the results of the Flickr API response.

add_action( 'admin_menu', function() 
{
    add_menu_page( 
        'Flicker', 
        'Flicker', 
        'add_users', 
        'fck_admin',
        'consult_flickr_api_so_7173971', 
        'https://i.stack.imgur.com/s2ons.png',
        2
    );  
});

function consult_flickr_api_so_7173971() 
{
    $api_key = 'YOUR-KEY';
    $secret_key = 'YOUR-SECRET'; // not needed for public data
    $uid = 'USER-ID-TO-CONSULT';
    $url = 'https://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?&method=flickr.people.getPublicPhotos&api_key=' 
         . $api_key 
         . '&user_id=' 
         . $uid 
         . '&format=json&nojsoncallback=1&per_page=15'; // maximum 500
    $flickr = wp_remote_get( $url, array( 'timeout' => 120, 'httpversion' => '1.1' ) );   
    if ( $flickr['response']['code'] == '200' )
    {        
        $flickr_array = json_decode( $flickr['body'], true );
        foreach( $flickr_array['photos']['photo'] as $photo )
        {
            echo '<h2>' . $photo['title'] . '</h2>';
            get_flickr_photo_so_7173971( $photo['id'] );
        }
    }
}

/**
http://www.flickr.com/services/api/
Useful Methods
 - getExif
 - getInfo
 - getSizes
*/
function get_flickr_photo_so_7173971( $photo_id, $method = 'getSizes' )
{
    $api_key = 'YOUR-KEY';
    $flickr = wp_remote_get( 
        'https://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?&method=flickr.photos.'
        . $method
        . '&api_key=' 
        . $api_key
        . '&photo_id='
        . $photo_id
        . '&format=json&nojsoncallback=1',
        array(
             'timeout' => 120, 
            'httpversion' => '1.1' 
        ) 
    );

    if ( $flickr['response']['code'] == '200' )
    {
        $flickr_array = json_decode( $flickr['body'], true );        
        $no_print = true;
        foreach( $flickr_array['sizes']['size'] as $size ) 
        {
            if( $size['label'] == 'Medium' ) {
                print_photo_so_7173971( $size );
                $no_print = false;
            } 
        }
        // No medium size was found, just print the first one
        if( $no_print ) 
        {
            print_photo_so_7173971( $flickr_array['sizes']['size'][0] );
        }
    }
}

function print_photo_so_7173971( $size ) 
{
    printf( 
        '<img src="%s" width="%s" height="%s" /><br />',
        $size['source'],
        $size['width'],
        $size['height']
    );
}

I'll leave the manipulation of these results to the reader.

Suggestions:

Set up a cron job to pull the information and do your stuff. Use this as reference: Website widget to display Apple App store price drops?
Create an options page and display the results with thumbnails, extended info and buttons to dispatch some action (image side load, create new post, etc), see here and here.

WordPress StackExchange is full of nice snippets and techniques.

Saving JSON or XML API response to a Wordpress database

1 Answers1

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