Introducing the 4chan API • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#11

Post by ddod » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 7:55 PM UTC

Could someone explain to me how this could be leveraged (or if it could be) to gather a sort of stream of messages, a la the Twitter streaming API or reddit.com/r/all/comments.json?

I'd be interested in doing some language statistics and comparing them to the aforementioned networks.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#12

Post by Lockyy » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 7:59 PM UTC

terhechte wrote: post #5

Sadly read-only, though it's not much work parsing the HTML and faking a submit through a Post request. Good luck submitting a 4chan app to Apple's app store though :)

They have already existed. They all got pulled recently.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#13

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:02 PM UTC

54mf wrote: post #8

calinet6 wrote: post #7

The first thing that jumps to mind with this is... "Oh $#!*." I don't know why, but it scares me what could come out of this.

Came to post this. The only redeemable value in 4chan, in my opinion, is that the fact that posts aren't archived makes for a very interesting social experiment. An API firehose pretty much puts an end to that.

[deleted]

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#14

Post by angersock » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

Something I just cobbled together:

   curl http://api.4chan.org/b/res/423418552.json | python -mjson.tool
   curl http://api.4chan.org/b/res/423418552.json | json_pp

Example for grabbing a thread and prettyprinting the JSON of it.

Because, you know, we need more 4chan in the house.

(EDIT: brief skimming of the comments indicates it may be semi-offensive, so be warmed. We're skimming /b/, after all.)

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#15

Post by xefer » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:03 PM UTC

It still requires scrapping to discover the thread ids though does it not?

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#16

Post by moot » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:05 PM UTC

xefer wrote: post #15

It still requires scrapping to discover the thread ids though does it not?

We'll have indexes and a catalog view soon.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#17

Post by angersock » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

moot wrote: post #16

xefer wrote: post #15

It still requires scrapping to discover the thread ids though does it not?

We'll have indexes and a catalog view soon.

Are some of the threads not rendered to JSON yet? i.e., do we only get it for new threads?

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#18

Post by aneisf » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:07 PM UTC

moot wrote: post #16

xefer wrote: post #15

It still requires scrapping to discover the thread ids though does it not?

We'll have indexes and a catalog view soon.

That's great news. No hope for a posting API I presume?

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#19

Post by moot » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #17

moot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have indexes and a catalog view soon.

Are some of the threads not rendered to JSON yet? i.e., do we only get it for new threads?

All of the old threads were rebuilt, so everything should have a JSON representation.

Re: Introducing the 4chan API

#20

Post by moot » Wed, Sep 05, 2012, 8:10 PM UTC

aneisf wrote: post #18

moot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have indexes and a catalog view soon.

That's great news. No hope for a posting API I presume?

Probably not. Since we don't have user accounts, and already have a bit of a spam problem, I'd be pretty worried about what a real POST API might bring.