Newbie help with API interaction Topic is solved

[DrW]

Hi,

I'm a beginner at AHK. The most I can do right now is create GUIs, macro interact with web pages, declare and access variables from the clipboard, move windows, use If/Then, Loop and basics like that.

I was looking at these threads:
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/1484 ... -api-call/
and
https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=17910

Because they seem to imply what I need to do... but I have NO idea what they are talking about.
I already have the API key I need, as well as the user name and password for the server....
... but that's as far as I can get. I don't even know where to begin.

What I want to do is have AHK authenticate with the server and access the API.
It then needs to look at this:
Request Method:GET
Status Code:200 OK

in the headers of the web element.

There's a lot more it needs to do after that... but one step at a time. First I just need to figure out how to get AHK to talk to the API... I tried to find information on "cURL" but every thread I find seems to expect you already know what cURL is and how to use it. Could someone help me get started on this?

Thank you!

[Blackholyman]

WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/5698 ... ntry358508
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/1130 ... quest-com/

[DrW]

Thanks! I'll take a look at this tonight and see if I can make it work!

[DrW]

WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/5698 ... ntry358508
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/1130 ... quest-com/

Hmmm both these threads seem to expect you know what they are talking about. I tried to check the documentation for AHK and I couldn't find anything explaining winhttp or curl or examples of how to use it like you can for WinWait, WinMove and so on.

EDIT: I guess what I'm looking for is documentation about what winhttp is? I think? I'm not really sure where to start.

[DrW]

I think cURL Is what I need to use based on that first thread I linked (since it is specifically talking about API interaction). Can anyone help a TOTAL NON CODER figure this out? Please keep in mind the best I can do is move windows, store clip board as variables and use it to sendinput and very basic stuff like that.

EDIT: Oh I forgot to mention the API uses JSON so I'll be interacting with that to get data.

[DrW]

Okay, here's what I got so far from reading the forums but man, I'm winging it hard. @-@

Code: Select all

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;					Contact API					;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
MsgBox,0,Check Data, Token: %API_Token%			;Confirm the variables were stored, they are not being shown here for safety.
MsgBox,0,Check Data, Username: %API_USER%		;Confirm
MsgBox,0,Check Data, Password: %API_PASS%		;Confirm
MsgBox,0,Check Data, URL: %API_URL%				;Confirm web address where the API server is.

WinHTTP := ComObjCreate("WinHTTP.WinHttpRequest.5.1")			;Load the library????
WinHTTP.Open("GET",API_URL, 0)									;Access the API. What's the ",0" at the end?
WinHTTP.SetCredentials(API_Token,API_PASS, 0)					;SEE PROBLEM QUERY.


;;I don't understand the below.

WinHTTP.SetRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")
Body = ""
Progress, 25
WinHTTP.Send(Body)
Result := WinHTTP.ResponseText
Status := WinHTTP.Status
Progress, Off

;;I don't understand the above.

IF Status = 200			;"GET" The HTTP page status???
{
  Msgbox,0,, OKAY		;Did it work?
}
else
{
 Msgbox,0,, FAILED		;Did it fail?
}

PROBLEM QUERY
This is the part that confuses me. I can get an OKAY response (in my "If status 200"). It's returning as 200 status okay... but I didn't declare the username. I declared the token and a password....but no where did I state the username. This server needs a username and password to log in... So... what happened?

EDIT: I don't think it's logging in, it's only checking to see if the page has loaded... I'm still not understanding how to actually send a login request.

[BoBo]

As you've done already you should go with a plain AHK related code if possible. That said, for those who struggle with AHK's COM/DOM & [JSON] abilities (or still use AHK v 1.0.x ?) [this] might be an option.

Good luck.

[BoBo]

Okay, here's what I got so far from reading the forums but man, I'm winging it hard. @-@

Code: Select all

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;					Contact API					;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
MsgBox,0,Check Data, Token: %API_Token%			;Confirm the variables were stored, they are not being shown here for safety.
MsgBox,0,Check Data, Username: %API_USER%		;Confirm
MsgBox,0,Check Data, Password: %API_PASS%		;Confirm
MsgBox,0,Check Data, URL: %API_URL%				;Confirm web address where the API server is.

WinHTTP := ComObjCreate("WinHTTP.WinHttpRequest.5.1")			;Load the library????
WinHTTP.Open("GET",API_URL, 0)									;Access the API. What's the ",0" at the end?
WinHTTP.SetCredentials(API_Token,API_PASS, 0)					;SEE PROBLEM QUERY.


;;I don't understand the below.

WinHTTP.SetRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")
Body = ""
Progress, 25
WinHTTP.Send(Body)
Result := WinHTTP.ResponseText
Status := WinHTTP.Status
Progress, Off

;;I don't understand the above.

IF Status = 200			;"GET" The HTTP page status???
{
  Msgbox,0,, OKAY		;Did it work?
}
else
{
 Msgbox,0,, FAILED		;Did it fail?
}

PROBLEM QUERY
This is the part that confuses me. I can get an OKAY response (in my "If status 200"). It's returning as 200 status okay... but I didn't declare the username. I declared the token and a password....but no where did I state the username. This server needs a username and password to log in... So... what happened?

EDIT: I don't think it's logging in, it's only checking to see if the page has loaded... I'm still not understanding how to actually send a login request.

Plain guessing, in case to handover login data isn't the server expecting to receive the request using the POST method instead of the GET method ???

[ WinHttp.open("POST",... ) ].

[DrW]

As you've done already you should go with a plain AHK related code if possible. That said, for those who struggle with AHK's COM/DOM & [JSON] abilities (or still use AHK v 1.0.x ?) [this] might be an option.

Good luck.

So does this mean that the winhttp, COM and JSON are libraries already integrated with AHK and I can just call on them without having to use anything external (like other software or download anything extra)?

I'll try that with POST and see what I get. Man this is so complicated. >_< But I'm trying!

[DrW]

Okay, so using this thread https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=92 I've made a bit of progress.

Code: Select all

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;					Contact API					;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;PostData := "username=Pulover&password=" pass "&login=Login" ;Original code. the API_USER and PASS are declared before this.
PostData := "username=" API_USER "&password=" API_PASS "&login=Login"

oHTTP := ComObjCreate("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
;Post request

oHTTP.Open("POST", API_URL , False)
;Add User-Agent header

oHTTP.SetRequestHeader("User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)")
;Add Referer header

oHTTP.SetRequestHeader("Referer", API_URL)
;Add Content-Type

oHTTP.SetRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded")
;Send POST request

oHTTP.Send(PostData)
;Get received data

Gui, Add, Edit, w800 r30, % oHTTP.ResponseText
Gui, Show
return

GuiClose:
ExitApp

Now this time when I use it I get the following error:
{"error":"Unauthorized API request, api_key header is missing"}

This seems like progress, so it's reaching the API now, but it's... missing the api_key header? I'm not sure what that means.

Help please?

[DrW]

I got it working.

Code: Select all

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;					Contact API					;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

;Variable that holds the winhttp commands.
COMMAND := ComObjCreate("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")

;Add User-Agent header
COMMAND.Open("POST", API_URL , FALSE,0) ;<- Access the API back end.

;Contact the API back end.
COMMAND.SetRequestHeader("User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2228.0 Safari/537.36") ;<- Method to emulate for accessing the API.
COMMAND.SetRequestHeader("Referer", API_URL)
COMMAND.SetRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json") ;<- What you're talking to. JSON in this case.
COMMAND.SetRequestHeader("api_key", API_KEY ) ;<- your access key.

;Log In
COMMAND.Send(API_Login)

;For testing purposes. Did it log in?
Gui, Add, Edit, w800 r30, % COMMAND.ResponseText
Gui, Show
return

GuiClose:
ExitApp

Turns out I had the API Token but not the API access key. So I declared the API access key and changed the "api_key" line 27 to what I have now. I now have successful contact.
Note that all the variables are being declared earlier but are not being posted here for security reasons.