Showing posts with label XML. Show all posts
Showing posts with label XML. Show all posts

Delphi Implementation for the OpenSubtitles API

OpenSubtitles.org allows searching and hosting subtitles in several formats (SRT, SUB, etc.) and pretty much every language. It currently has a vast database of subtitles (expanding every day). OpenSubtitles.org also exposes a XML-RPC based API that can be used in order to build third party applications with subtitle features.

I am writing a Delphi app to search subtitles in the OpenSubtitles.org database... I thought it would be nice to have a Delphi wrapper for the whole API. Below is my three cents contribution. I will probably implement and share more methods in the future, but feel free to contribute as well.  Take a look at the full API methods list. 

XML-RPC stands for XML Remote Procedure Call. It allows “remote procedure calling using HTTP as the transport and XML as the encoding”. [http://xmlrpc.scripting.com/spec]. XML-RPC is really easy to implement: in the code below I have used formatted strings to conform the XML requests (XML encoding pending) and the Indy TIdHTTP component to send the requests.

unit OpensubtitlesAPI;

interface

uses
  IdHTTP, Classes, SysUtils;

  function LogIn(aUsername, aPassword,
                 aLanguage, aUserAgent: string): string;
  function LogOut(aToken: string): string;
  function SearchSubtitles(aToken, aSublanguageID,
                           aMovieHash: string;
                           aMovieByteSize: Cardinal): string;  overload;
  function SearchSubtitles(aToken, aSublanguageID: string;
                           aImdbID: Cardinal): string; overload;
  function SearchSubtitles(aToken, aSublanguageID,
                           aQuery: string): string;  overload;

implementation

function XML_RPC(aRPCRequest: string): string;
const
  cURL= 'http://api.opensubtitles.org/xml-rpc';
var
  lHTTP: TIdHTTP;
  Source,
  ResponseContent: TStringStream;
begin
  lHTTP := TIdHTTP.Create(nil);
  lHTTP.Request.ContentType := 'text/xml';
  lHTTP.Request.Accept := '*/*';
  lHTTP.Request.Connection := 'Keep-Alive';
  lHTTP.Request.Method := 'POST';
  lHTTP.Request.UserAgent := 'OS Test User Agent';
  Source := TStringStream.Create(aRPCRequest);
  ResponseContent:= TStringStream.Create;
  try
    try
      lHTTP.Post(cURL, Source, ResponseContent);
      Result:= ResponseContent.DataString;
    except
      Result:= '';
    end;
  finally
    lHTTP.Free;
    Source.Free;
    ResponseContent.Free;
  end;
end;

function LogIn(aUsername, aPassword, aLanguage, aUserAgent: string): string;
const
  LOG_IN = '<?xml version="1.0"?>' +
           '<methodCall>' +
           '  <methodName>LogIn</methodName>' +
           '  <params>'   +
           '    <param>'  +
           '      <value><string>%0:s</string></value>' +
           '    </param>' +
           '    <param>'  +
           '      <value><string>%1:s</string></value>' +
           '    </param>' +
           '    <param>'  +
           '      <value><string>%2:s</string></value>' +
           '    </param>' +
           '    <param>'  +
           '      <value><string>%3:s</string></value>' +
           '    </param>' +
           '  </params>'  +
           '</methodCall>';
begin
  //TODO: XML Encoding
  Result:= XML_RPC(Format(LOG_IN, [aUsername, aPassword, aLanguage, aUserAgent]));
end;

function LogOut(aToken: string): string;
const
  LOG_OUT = '<?xml version="1.0"?>' +
           '<methodCall>' +
           '  <methodName>LogOut</methodName>' +
           '  <params>'   +
           '    <param>'  +
           '      <value><string>%0:s</string></value>' +
           '    </param>' +
           '  </params>'  +
           '</methodCall>';
begin
  //TODO: XML Encoding
  Result:= XML_RPC(Format(LOG_OUT, [aToken]));
end;

function SearchSubtitles(aToken, aSublanguageID, aMovieHash: string; aMovieByteSize: Cardinal): string;
const
  SEARCH_SUBTITLES = '<?xml version="1.0"?>' +
                     '<methodCall>' +
                     '  <methodName>SearchSubtitles</methodName>' +
                     '  <params>' +
                     '    <param>' +
                     '      <value><string>%0:s</string></value>' +
                     '    </param>' +
                     '  <param>' +
                     '   <value>' +
                     '    <array>' +
                     '     <data>' +
                     '      <value>' +
                     '       <struct>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>sublanguageid</name>' +
                     '         <value><string>%1:s</string>' +
                     '         </value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>moviehash</name>' +
                     '         <value><string>%2:s</string></value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>moviebytesize</name>' +
                     '         <value><double>%3:d</double></value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '       </struct>' +
                     '      </value>' +
                     '     </data>' +
                     '    </array>' +
                     '   </value>' +
                     '  </param>' +
                     ' </params>' +
                     '</methodCall>';

begin
  //TODO: XML Encoding
  Result:= XML_RPC(Format(SEARCH_SUBTITLES, [aToken, aSublanguageID, aMovieHash, aMovieByteSize]));
end;

function SearchSubtitles(aToken, aSublanguageID: string;
  aImdbID: Cardinal): string;
const
  SEARCH_SUBTITLES = '<?xml version="1.0"?>' +
                     '<methodCall>' +
                     '  <methodName>SearchSubtitles</methodName>' +
                     '  <params>' +
                     '    <param>' +
                     '      <value><string>%0:s</string></value>' +
                     '    </param>' +
                     '  <param>' +
                     '   <value>' +
                     '    <array>' +
                     '     <data>' +
                     '      <value>' +
                     '       <struct>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>sublanguageid</name>' +
                     '         <value><string>%1:s</string>' +
                     '         </value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>imdbid</name>' +
                     '         <value><string>%2:d</string></value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '       </struct>' +
                     '      </value>' +
                     '     </data>' +
                     '    </array>' +
                     '   </value>' +
                     '  </param>' +
                     ' </params>' +
                     '</methodCall>';

begin
  //TODO: XML Encoding
  Result:= XML_RPC(Format(SEARCH_SUBTITLES, [aToken, aSublanguageID, aImdbID]));
end;

function SearchSubtitles(aToken, aSublanguageID,
  aQuery: string): string;
const
  SEARCH_SUBTITLES = '<?xml version="1.0"?>' +
                     '<methodCall>' +
                     '  <methodName>SearchSubtitles</methodName>' +
                     '  <params>' +
                     '    <param>' +
                     '      <value><string>%0:s</string></value>' +
                     '    </param>' +
                     '  <param>' +
                     '   <value>' +
                     '    <array>' +
                     '     <data>' +
                     '      <value>' +
                     '       <struct>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>sublanguageid</name>' +
                     '         <value><string>%1:s</string>' +
                     '         </value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '        <member>' +
                     '         <name>query</name>' +
                     '         <value><string>%2:s</string></value>' +
                     '        </member>' +
                     '       </struct>' +
                     '      </value>' +
                     '     </data>' +
                     '    </array>' +
                     '   </value>' +
                     '  </param>' +
                     ' </params>' +
                     '</methodCall>';

begin
  //TODO: XML Encoding
  Result:= XML_RPC(Format(SEARCH_SUBTITLES, [aToken, aSublanguageID, aQuery]));
end;

end.


Finally, I present you some sample calls:

Logging- in anonymously (empty credentials) and getting the token:

LogIn('', '', 'en', 'OS Test User Agent');

Logging- out (disposing the token):

LogOut('81nt6bgl9vde06l3ptq7v1a7r1');

Search English subtitles for the movie whose ImdbID is 120737

SearchSubtitles(Edit1.Text, 'eng', 120737);

Search English subtitles for The Lord of the Rings

SearchSubtitles(Edit1.Text, 'eng', 'The Lord of the Rings');


Search English subtitles for the movie whose hash is 7d9cd5def91c9432 and size is 735934464.

SearchSubtitles(Edit1.Text, 'eng', '7d9cd5def91c9432', 735934464);

Submit Blogger sitemap to Google, Yahoo and Bing

Sitemaps let search engines to know more about the structure of your website. Blogs, like any other websites, can improve their visibility on the Internet, by adding their XML sitemaps to the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing).

The problem with Blogger is that you can’t upload your own sitemap or any other file to your blogspot sub-domain root (ex. http://sub-domain.blogspot.com/) or custom domain root (ex. http://www.yanniel.info/).

No panic! There’s a workaround for this: luckily for bloggers, sitemaps can be generated as feeds; meaning that you can actually submit an RSS or Atom feed as a valid sitemap.

Blogger supports both RSS and Atom formats. Anyway, I advice you use the Atom feed URL, because I have had problems when submitting the RSS URL. What problems?  Well, I don’t recall now, but I’m pretty sure I had problems ;-)

Here is the Atom sitemap URL for Blogger (it does work for both blogspot sub-domain and custom domains):

http://sub-domain.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

http://www. customdomain/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

Basically, the important part is:

atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

A brief explanation:
  • atom.xml express the fact that you are requesting an XML Atom feed.
  • redirect=false prevents  Blogger from redirecting your sitemap to a third-party sitemap burner. This is very useful if you are using FeedBurner, because FeedBurner feeds are not recognized as valid sitemaps in most cases.
  • start-index=1 indicates that you want to syndicate starting on your first post. If you chose 10, for instance, your sitemap will start at post number 10.
  • max-results=500 tells Blogger to include 500 posts in your sitemap.  You can change this number as well, but the maximum count of posts syndicated in your feed will never exceed 500.
So, what happens if my blog has more than 500 posts? Well, you simply add a second sitemap, a third and so on. See the URLs:

http://sub-domain.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500

http://sub-domain.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=501&max-results=500

http://sub-domain.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1001&max-results=500
................................................

There’s only one thing pending: you need to add your sitemaps to the major search engines…
Submitting your sitemaps for each search engine is a slightly different process. I might cover those SEO topics in future posts.