professional-python-exercises-1-weatherAPI

Task

Exercieses complementing the Professional Python course on youtube - first exercise of communicating with an API

Exercise goals:

• Simple script as start

• Communicate with an external system

• Output things to console

• Fetch weather data

  • Weather history data last 3 days
  • Weather forecast for next 3 days
  • Extra: Display a temperature map (past or future)

Function of the code in this repository

• The OpenWeatherMap API has been used in this repository (https://openweathermap.org/api, version 2.5 as this is free for use)
  • The api function used in this script is documented at: https://openweathermap.org/forecast5
• The free version will require an API key which is asked for at the beginning of the execution of the script
• Basically the Script asks the user to input a city for which to generate a forcast
• The forcast is set to be at least 3 days (25 timestamps in 3 hours intervals)
• Local caching is activated
  • The json response from the api is saved as a file in the directory of the script
  • When executed again and less than one day has passed and the same location is required, the api is not triggered again but rather cached data is being read in
  • If the file is deleted the api is triggered anyway as loading from cache is impossible

Usage

• Install the requirements with
  • pip install -r requirements.txt
• The api key can be stored in a local .env file with the following scheme: TNT_EX1_OPENWEATHERMAP_API_KEY='API__KEY__PLACEHOLDER'
  • User is asked to input an api-key if no api key can be found
  • The given key is saved into the .env file for future use
• Run the Python file: WeatherDataFetcher.py with python WeatherDataFetcher.py
• Input data as required