{"id":818,"date":"2009-07-27T22:32:29","date_gmt":"2009-07-27T22:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=818"},"modified":"2009-07-27T22:45:04","modified_gmt":"2009-07-27T22:45:04","slug":"what-programme-was-on-bbc1-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=818","title":{"rendered":"What programme was on BBC1 at…?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After my absence<\/a>, I thought I’d come back with something quick and fun – the result of half an hour’s playing with a new (to me<\/em>) API. <\/p>\n

The problem that I wanted to look into was: What programme was on TV on a given channel at a given time?<\/p>\n

And how can I find this out programmatically?<\/p>\n

The first thing that I came across was the getProgrammes<\/a> service in the beta BBC Web API<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As I expect from the forward-thinking BBC, it’s pretty awesome: a simple API that gives you an XML document containing the programmes schedule for the specified time window. <\/p>\n

The documentation on the BBC site is pretty self-explanatory. It gives all the information you need to start playing with the API – either using the form on the BBC page<\/a>, or by sending it a few requests using wget<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

wget -O - \"http:\/\/www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk\/cgi-perl\/api\/query.pl?method=bbc.schedule.getProgrammes&channel_id=BBCOne&format=simple&detail=schedule&start=2009-07-10T21:00:00Z&end=2009-07-10T22:30:00Z\" \r\n\r\n<rsp stat=\"ok\"> \r\n        <schedule> \r\n                <programme programme_id=\"crid:\/\/bbc.co.uk\/272940021\" title=\"Torchwood: Children of Earth\"> \r\n                        <synopsis>Day Five: Gwen stands alone as the final sanction begins, and the world descends into anarchy. Contains adult themes. Also in HD. [AD,S]<\/synopsis> \r\n                        <channel_id>BBCOne<\/channel_id> \r\n                        <start>2009-07-10T20:00:00Z<\/start> \r\n                        <duration>01:00:00<\/duration> \r\n                <\/programme> \r\n                <programme programme_id=\"crid:\/\/bbc.co.uk\/272934185\" title=\"BBC News at Ten\"> \r\n                        <synopsis>The latest national and international news, with reports from BBC correspondents worldwide. [S]<\/synopsis> \r\n                        <channel_id>BBCOne<\/channel_id> \r\n                        <start>2009-07-10T21:00:00Z<\/start> \r\n                        <duration>00:25:00<\/duration> \r\n                <\/programme> \r\n                <programme programme_id=\"crid:\/\/bbc.co.uk\/272937816\" title=\"BBC London News\"> \r\n                        <synopsis>The latest stories from the BBC London newsroom. Followed by Weather. [S]<\/synopsis> \r\n                        <channel_id>BBCOne<\/channel_id> \r\n                        <start>2009-07-10T21:25:00Z<\/start> \r\n                        <duration>00:10:00<\/duration> \r\n                <\/programme> \r\n                <programme programme_id=\"crid:\/\/bbc.co.uk\/272937814\" title=\"Friday Night with Jonathan Ross\"> \r\n                        <synopsis>23\/25. Jonathan Ross is joined by fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, Top Gear's James May and American singer\/songwriter Rufus Wainwright. With music from Paolo Nutini. Also in HD. [S]<\/synopsis> \r\n                        <channel_id>BBCOne<\/channel_id> \r\n                        <start>2009-07-10T21:35:00Z<\/start> \r\n                        <duration>01:00:00<\/duration> \r\n                <\/programme> \r\n        <\/schedule> \r\n<\/rsp> <\/pre>\n
The next step was to knock up a quick bit of Java to try it:<\/p>\n
import java.io.IOException;\r\nimport java.net.HttpURLConnection;\r\nimport java.net.MalformedURLException;\r\nimport java.net.ProtocolException;\r\nimport java.net.URL;\r\nimport java.text.DateFormat;\r\nimport java.text.ParseException;\r\nimport java.text.SimpleDateFormat;\r\nimport java.util.Date;\r\nimport java.util.GregorianCalendar;\r\nimport java.util.TimeZone;\r\n\r\nimport javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;\r\nimport javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;\r\nimport javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;\r\nimport javax.xml.xpath.XPath;\r\nimport javax.xml.xpath.XPathConstants;\r\nimport javax.xml.xpath.XPathExpression;\r\nimport javax.xml.xpath.XPathExpressionException;\r\nimport javax.xml.xpath.XPathFactory;\r\n\r\nimport org.w3c.dom.Document;\r\nimport org.w3c.dom.NodeList;\r\nimport org.xml.sax.SAXException;\r\n\r\npublic class BBCSchedule {\r\n\r\n    public static void main(String[] args) {\r\n\r\n        \/\/ what TV channel?\r\n        String channel = \"BBCOne\";\r\n\r\n        \/\/ what time did the TV go on?\r\n        GregorianCalendar startTime = new GregorianCalendar(TimeZone.getTimeZone(\"GMT\"));\r\n        startTime.set(2009, GregorianCalendar.JULY, 10, 19, 0, 0);\r\n        \r\n        \/\/ what time did the TV go off?\r\n        GregorianCalendar finishTime = new GregorianCalendar(TimeZone.getTimeZone(\"GMT\"));\r\n        finishTime.set(2009, GregorianCalendar.JULY, 10, 20, 30, 0);\r\n\r\n        \/\/ query BBC API for what programmes were on at this time\r\n        try {\r\n            \/\/ ISO datetime format used by BBC\r\n            DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat(\"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss\");\r\n            \r\n            \/\/ BBC API works in GMT - so need to convert all data to and from this \r\n            df.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(\"GMT\"));\r\n            String start = df.format(startTime.getTime());\r\n            String end = df.format(finishTime.getTime());\r\n\r\n            \/\/ web services API \r\n            \/\/  documented at http:\/\/www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk\/services\/api\/bbc.schedule.getProgrammes.html\r\n            URL url = new URL(\r\n                    \"http:\/\/www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk\/cgi-perl\/api\/query.pl?method=bbc.schedule.getProgrammes&channel_id=\" + channel\r\n                            + \"&format=simple&detail=schedule&start=\"\r\n                            + start + \"&end=\" + end);\r\n            \r\n            \/\/ send request\r\n            HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();\r\n            connection.setDoInput(true);\r\n            connection.setRequestMethod(\"GET\");\r\n\r\n            \/\/ create an XML object from the response\r\n            DocumentBuilderFactory domFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();\r\n            domFactory.setNamespaceAware(true);\r\n            DocumentBuilder builder = domFactory.newDocumentBuilder();\r\n            Document doc = builder.parse(connection.getInputStream());\r\n\r\n            \/\/ parse the XML response using XPath\r\n            XPathFactory factory = XPathFactory.newInstance();\r\n            XPath xpath = factory.newXPath();\r\n            XPathExpression expr = xpath.compile(\"\/rsp\/schedule\/programme\");\r\n\r\n            \/\/ for each node in the tree, pick out a few fields\r\n            NodeList nodes = (NodeList) expr.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.NODESET);\r\n            for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {\r\n            \t\/\/ TODO: using a whole new XPath query to pick out attributes\r\n            \t\/\/    is a quick-and-dirty hack - would be more efficient to \r\n            \t\/\/    use a single, smarter query\r\n            \t\/\/    This will do for proof-of-concept, though\r\n            \t\r\n                expr = xpath.compile(\"\/rsp\/schedule\/programme[\" + (i + 1) + \"]\/@title\");\r\n                String progTitle = (String) expr.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.STRING);\r\n\r\n                expr = xpath.compile(\"\/rsp\/schedule\/programme[\" + (i + 1) + \"]\/start\");\r\n                String progStart = (String) expr.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.STRING);\r\n                Date progStartDate = df.parse(progStart);\r\n\r\n                expr = xpath.compile(\"\/rsp\/schedule\/programme[\" + (i + 1) + \"]\/duration\");\r\n                String progDuration = (String) expr.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.STRING);\r\n\r\n                \/\/ TEST - display the start time, duration and title of the programme\r\n                System.out.println(progStartDate.toString() + \" :: \" + progDuration + \"  ==> \" + progTitle);\r\n            }\r\n\r\n        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        } catch (ProtocolException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        } catch (IOException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        } catch (SAXException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        } catch (XPathExpressionException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        } catch (ParseException e) {\r\n            e.printStackTrace();\r\n        }\r\n    }\r\n}<\/pre>\n
Running this outputs:<\/p>\n
Fri Jul 10 19:30:00 BST 2009 :: 00:30:00  ==> Air Medics\r\nFri Jul 10 20:00:00 BST 2009 :: 00:30:00  ==> EastEnders\r\nFri Jul 10 20:30:00 BST 2009 :: 00:30:00  ==> Celebrity MasterChef\r\nFri Jul 10 21:00:00 BST 2009 :: 01:00:00  ==> Torchwood: Children of Earth<\/pre>\n
(Yup – Torchwood was great, wasn’t it?<\/em>)<\/p>\n
It’s impressive how simple this was to do. (Although it does mean I’m a little less impressed with the (very slick) BBC Listings app<\/a> on my Android phone \ud83d\ude09 )<\/p>\n
The only problem is that the BBC only provide an API for their own channels. What if I want to know what was on ITV last night?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After my absence, I thought I’d come back with something quick and fun – the result of half an hour’s playing with a new (to me) API. The problem that I wanted to look into was: What programme was on TV on a given channel at a given time? And how can I find this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[51,50,306,398,399,572],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code","tag-backstage","tag-bbc","tag-television","tag-tv","tag-tv-guide","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}