It is convenient to contain and distribute small amounts of data using static files. Files work well for sources of data that are low volume, self contained, and infrequently updated. Many sources of data, however, are a part of massive web applications or data archives that are updated constantly. Sources, such as Wikipedia and Seeclickfix, that store data in large databases will often make their data available through APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow users to retrieve small selections of the data. In fact, the Seeclickfix and Wikipedia datasets used in previous chapters were obtained using APIs.

In this chapter, I will walk through the steps of using Python to retrieve the data from the Seeclickfix API. This chapter will include the following sections:

• Logistical overview
• Introducing APIs
• Using Python to retrieve data from APIs
• Using URL parameters to filter the results