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EVE-Central API best parctices
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Tseehn Marhn

Rat Duck

Likes received: 1

#1 - 2012-06-04 18:36:23 UTC

I've decided to start building a market analysis tool for EVE, based on the Eve-Central API, and possibly later the EMDR once it's a bit more mature.

My question is how much should I limit my calls to the EVE-central server?

For example I want to start with the marketstat() for every sellable item at the players current station. I've already gone through CCP's data dumps and sorted out all the items with a marketGroupID from their invTypes table, so I wont be spamming item types that don't exist in the market. Yet there are still over 2200 items in that list.

Should I make 2200 individual calls for each market item? I don't know how happy the EVE-Central admin will be with 2200 marketstat() requests every time I run the program.

Or should I combine requests? Make one call asking for marketstat() on 100 items, append that data to a list, and repeat 22 more times?

Or should I request all 2200 items in one marketstat() call? Can I even pass a URL that long?

I'm just trying to play nice, and avoid overloading someone else's server with a poorly designed program.

Suggestions?

mxzf

Shovel Bros

Likes received: 2,175

#2 - 2012-06-04 19:33:42 UTC

I don't know how Eve-Central's API works specifically, but I can make some guesses based on common programming practices. If I were writing a program to access that stuff, I would probably use the 22x100 method; preferably parsing what you pulled down before running the next call, to give the system a small break between calls. It seems like a good tradeoff between bulk data and not having a MASSIVE request.

Also, make sure that you're storing the data locally and updating as-needed, rather than just tossing all the data when you close the program and having to re-call all of the info.

Depending on the granularity of information you need, you might also want to consider using the static market exports that they run daily.


Tseehn Marhn Rat Duck Likes received: 1	#3 - 2012-06-04 19:56:01 UTC Thanks MXZF, those are good points. I've been debating if I wanted to make a complete local data copy to work with instead; now it seems like the best option. Another question then: what is usually included in those market dumps? Universe-wide buy and sell order data? Or is it narrowed/processed somehow?


mxzf Shovel Bros Likes received: 2,175	#4 - 2012-06-05 01:45:13 UTC http://dev.eve-central.com/evec-api/start#csv_daily_market_dumps wrote: Note that this isn't a static price dump of prices for a day; instead its every market log that was uploaded appended end to end (though in-file sorting is not guaranteed). Sounds like it's just a raw data dump.