This is an unofficial API that serves course data from Foothill DeAnza MyPortal to students wishing to use it. If you have a suggestion for what other FHDA data this API should serve, drop an issue on Github. OwlAPI now has a home at floof.li.
Kishan Emens, John Schwarz, Joshua Kuan, Joshua Fan, Byron White
If you would like to contribute follow this guide.
Flask, TinyDB, BeautifulSoup4, Requests, Maya ✨🍰✨
OwlAPI serves data directly from MyPortal. It does not try to filter or add anything new to the format to maintain purity to the original. For now, only the most recent quarter's data is pulled from MyPortal. On floof.li, seat data is synced every 5 minutes with MyPortal.
CRN | Course Number
course | Course ID (format: [F0*][ID][Section ID][WYH]) see note
desc | Short-form course description
campus | Campus the section is held at
days | Day(s) the section is held on (M, T, W, Th, F, S, U)
instructor | Professor for the section
room | Room the section is held at
time | Time for the section
start | First date for the section
end | Last date for the course
units | Number of course units
seats | Seats left in the course
status | Status of the course (Online / Waitlist)
wait_cap | Waitlist capacity
wait_seats | Waitlist slots left in the course
Online | W (Foothill) / Z (De Anza)
Hybrid | Y
Honors | H
Before any of the endpoints below, you must select which campus' data you'd like the query. Before the endpoint type /fh or /da for Foothill and De Anza respectively.
Alternatively, if either campus' data cannot be accessed, a debug campus has been put into production. Use the
campus selector test to grab this older copy of Foothill data.
GET /fh/list?dept=CS
2C, 49, 30A, 80A, 18, 21B, 50E, 3A, 22A, 50C, 50A, 20A, 2A, 1B, 1A, 81A, 53A, 82A, 30B, 63A, 21A, 53B, 1C, 2B, 10, 31A, 60A
GET /single handles a single request to get a whole department or a whole course listing from the database
It expects a mandatory query parameter dept and an optionally course.
GET /fh/single?dept=CS&course=2A
{"10116":
[
{ "CRN": "10116",
"campus": "FH",
"course": "C S F002A01W",
"days": "TBA",
"desc": "OBJ-ORIENT PROG METHOD IN C++",
"end": "08/12/2018",
"instructor": "Venkataraman",
"room": "ONLINE",
"seats": "34",
"start": "07/02/2018",
"status": "Open",
"time": "TBA",
"units": "4.50",
"wait_cap": "10",
"wait_seats": "10" },
{...}
]
}
/single returns a JSON format with the keys as the CRN for the course, and the values as a list. The list is necessary to account for hybrid classes or classes with labs, that have two or more listings per CRN.
You can view an example of the /single route here.
POST /batch handles a batch request to get many departments or many sections from the database.
This batch request is meant to simulate hitting the api route with this data N times.
It expects a mandatory list of objects containing keys dept and course.
POST /fh/batch
{
"courses": [
{"dept":"CS", "course":"1A"},
{"dept":"MATH", "course":"1A"},
{"dept":"ENGL", "course":"1A"}
]
}
/batch returns a JSON format with the initial key as courses and a value containing a list of courses. The courses are formatted in the same way as found in the /single response.
You can view an example of the /batch route here.
Additionally, in the POST /batch body you can specify any number of filters to narrow the results. Add the filter key to the post body and then apply the appropriate filter. Multiple options can be selected by changing the value from a 0 to a 1.
Be careful because too many filters may result in zero sections returned from the database. Also, even if 2 out of 3 courses are valid, one invalid will return 404.
Filter by the availability of a course (Open, Waitlist, Full). The example below shows how you can filter only open and waitlist sections.
POST /fh/batch
{
"courses": [{"dept":"CS", "course":"1A"}]
"filters": {"status": {"open":1, "waitlist":1, "full":0}}
}
Filter by the format of the course (In Person, Online, Hybrid). The example below shows how you can filter only online and hybrid sections.
POST /fh/batch
{
"courses": [{"dept":"CS", "course":"1A"}]
"filters": {"types":{"standard":0, "online":1, "hybrid":1}}
}
Filter by the days the course should be limited to (M, T, W, Th, F, S, U). The example below shows how you can filter only M and W sections.
POST /fh/batch
{
"courses": [{"dept":"CS", "course":"1A"}]
"filters": {"days":{"M":1, "T":0, "W":1, "Th":0, "F":0, "S":0, "U":0}}
}
Filter by a specified time interval (7:30 AM - 12:00 PM). The example below shows how you can filter only morning sections.
POST /fh/batch
{
"courses": [{"dept":"CS", "course":"1A"}]
"filters": {"time":{"start":"7:30 AM", "end":"12:00 PM"}}
}
GET /list handles a single request to list department or course keys from the database
It takes an optional query parameter dept which is first checked for existence and then returns the dept keys.
GET /fh/list
IDS, CHLD, ALTW, ANTH, SPAN, CRWR, DH, NCLA, POLI, CHEM, CNSL, GIST, MTEC, ASTR, PHOT, ITRN, DMS, AHS, EMTP, ATHL, APEL, HIST, HORT, GEOG, SPED, ALCB, RT, MDIA, ENGR, THTR, NCSV, NCBS, ACTG, NCEL, KINS, DANC, HUMN, DA, JAPN, CRLP, VITI, BIOL, BUSI, PSE, _default, ECON, RSPT, ART, NCBH, PHT, LA, CS, LINC, MUS, EMS, PHED, ENGL, VT, HLTH, APPT, MATH, COMM, NCP, GID, LIBR, APSM, PHDA, PHIL, WMN, NANO, PSYC, ESLL, SOC, APIW, PHYS
GET /fh/list?dept=CS
2C, 49, 30A, 80A, 18, 21B, 50E, 3A, 22A, 50C, 50A, 20A, 2A, 1B, 1A, 81A, 53A, 82A, 30B, 63A, 21A, 53B, 1C, 2B, 10, 31A, 60A
GET /urls returns a tree of all departments, their courses, and the courses' endpoints to hit.
GET /fh/urls
"CS": [
{
"2A": {
"course": "2A",
"dept": "CS"
},
"2B": {
"course": "2B",
"dept": "CS"
},
"2C": {
"course": "2C",
"dept": "CS"
},
{...}
}
],
"MATH": [...]
Install pipenv onto root
pip install pipenv
Download all dependencies for Foothill API
pipenv install
Start pipenv session
pipenv shell
Run Data Scraper
python data_scraper.py
Start API
python server.py
This is a setup guide for using systemctl to run the server in the background. This small guide also covers how to setup a servive to refresh the database on timed interval.
This service is the main driver which runs the API. Gunicorn is used to serve Python through WSGI, and nginx is used to direct port traffic to The API.
Create a file named OwlAPI.service
sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/OwlAPI.service
Paste in this sample config changing user
[Unit]
Description=Gunicorn instance to serve OwlAPI
After=network.target
[Service]
User=user
Group=nginx
WorkingDirectory=/home/user/OwlAPI
Environment="PATH=/home/user/.local/share/virtualenvs/OwlAPI-mya9jbVn/bin/"
ExecStart=/home/user/.local/share/virtualenvs/OwlAPI-mya9jbVn/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 -m 007 server:application
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
You'll also have to change the virtualenv path to match the id from when you ran pipenv shell
Start and enable the service
sudo systemctl start OwlAPI
sudo systemctl enable OwlAPI
This service runs in the background to refresh the database on a timed interval. This keeps the API fresh with new data from MyPortal. It's crucial to have the data refreshed if live course seat and status data is desired.
Create a file named refreshDB.service
sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/refreshDB.service
Paste in this sample config changing user
[Unit]
Description=Timer job to refresh OwlAPI database
After=network.target
[Service]
User=user
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/user/OwlAPI
Environment=PATH=/home/user/.local/share/virtualenvs/OwlAPI-mya9jbVn/bin/
ExecStart=/home/user/.local/share/virtualenvs/OwlAPI-mya9jbVn/bin/python3.6 /home/user/OwlAPI/data_scraper.py
StandardError=journal
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Create a file named refeshDB.timer
sudo vi /etc/systemd/system/refeshDB.timer
[Unit]
Description=Timer set to call refreshDB service
[Timer]
Unit=refreshDB.service
OnBootSec=30sec
OnUnitActiveSec=1min
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Start and enable the service
sudo systemctl start refreshDB.timer
sudo systemctl enable refreshDB.timer