Wolfram API XML Help

aseylys · 01-16-2013, 10:13 PM

So I'm a little new to XML, I mean I get the gist of most of it I'm just no expert. So I'm writing this program that when asked a question it goes to the Wolfram API and asks it there, then Wolfram prints out an XML code containing the answer. Here's an example:
Question: Who is the president?
Answer:

Code:

<queryresult success="true" error="false" numpods="1" datatypes="City,Country,Leader,People,USState" timedout="" timedoutpods="" timing="1.096" parsetiming="0.191" parsetimedout="false" recalculate="" id="MSPa54631a4hg0e0c5496d8b000044bfi5giibia4e8i" auth="" host="http://www3.wolframalpha.com" server="31" related="http://www3.wolframalpha.com/api/v2/relatedQueries.jsp?id=MSPa54641a4hg0e0c5496d8b00001hefhhf2fe5fbe3g&s=31" version="2.6">
<pod title="Result" scanner="Data" id="Result" position="200" error="false" numsubpods="1" primary="true">
<subpod title="">
<plaintext>Barack Obama</plaintext>
</subpod>
</pod>
<sources count="2">
<source url="http://www.wolframalpha.com/sources/LeaderDataSourceInformationNotes.html" text="Leader data"/>
<source url="http://www.wolframalpha.com/sources/PeopleDataSourceInformationNotes.html" text="People data"/>
</sources>
</queryresult>

The answer is in the <plaintext> area. So I'm wondering if there was a way, after imputing the answer that if XML had a way of just giving me the answer, like a code that would only display what is between the <plaintext> & </plaintext>?
Anyone have any clues or suggestions? Help is greatly appreciated.

sunfighter · 01-18-2013, 06:55 PM

The return that you are getting (what you posted in the [code] tags) is not good xml. It hangs up in the first line at related="..." It's the second equal sign in the url that is killing this. I'm not that familiar with Wolfram API, but the little I read said you can change what you get sent back by your request structure. You should look into that.

I removed the related="..." and used everything else. I am also assuming your use ajax to get this results. What I did was to make a file called API.xml and then used this javascript to get the results:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script>
function loadXMLDoc(dname)
{
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {
  xhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else
  {
  xhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
xhttp.open("GET",dname,false);
xhttp.send('');
return xhttp.responseXML;
}
</script>
</head>

<body>
<script>
xmlDoc=loadXMLDoc("API.xml");
document.write(xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("plaintext")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue + "<br>");
</script>
</body>
</html>