Making an API for File Based Data (Part 2: Creating an Open Data API)

This video is the second part of a series that utilizes a file based open data set and applies methodologies to further leverage the data beyond a spreadsheet. The content of this video walks through the steps it takes to create a RESTful API application and is a continuation of the first part of this video series. The open data catalog used in this example originates from the City of San Diego Open Data and contains the information related to the pothole repair requests made by the constituents of the city via the "Get It Done" mobile app. The original data source file was a comma separated file that contains 25,779 records. The first part of this series consisted of locating the data file, downloading the source file, transforming and loading the information into a database, and finally exploring the data using Structured Query Language (SQL). This video continues where part 1 left off by creating a simple RESTful API application that is able to query the database we loaded from the prior video. The steps in this video includes creating a basic API project, adding Object Relational Mapping libraries to the project, creating the API controller for our San Diego open data, and writing some custom API methods that can be called via an API request over http. The objective of this video is to keep it short and simple to try not to overcomplicate the steps and show how the file base data set can be further utilized for additional purposes. The contents of this video is for referential purposes to illustrate using a file based data set and migrating it to a referential database management system using the tools available so that anyone can do similar projects with data sets of their choice. This video is also part 2 of a 4 part series that will include the steps necessary to create a web service application programming interface hosted on cloud servers for production usage. Open Data Technology Services strives to create content to be shared to the public in order to promote advanced utilization of open data catalogs as well as the democratization of data through knowledge sharing.

Open data catalog used:

Technology covered in the video:
Database: SQL Server and Structured Query Language (SQL)
Integrated Development Environment (IDE): Visual Studio 2019
Programming Language and Framework: C# using .Net Core
Object Relational Mapping (ORM) Code Generation by Scaffolding
ORM Packages: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer, Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design, Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools
Application Framework: Model View Controller (MVC)
Application Programming Interface (API): RESTful over http
API Data Format: JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

Music provided by:
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)