Where to start for my java program (Using the folder names to get info from IMDB)

Question

I finished first year comp sci. And i want to spend some time working on the things they have taught us in the first year (lot of java and a bit of C)...

Anyways as a project, i wanted to do something i need, and what i need is a program to run through my movie folder and get the ratings and some basic info from IMDB...

I'm not sure where to start, i think i can handle the parts about reading the folder names, getting rid of the junk from the name to get the actual name and stuff.. Also i can handle the GUI but i don't know how i can talk to IMDB... what steps should i take to complete this project. I have about a month before school starts and i want to finish it before then...Thanks for all the input

EDIT: Also can you guys tell me what i should start with and then move on to what? As in should i start with the GUI first or have the code that reads in the folder names and filters the names... I only wrote one program as an assignment in school and it was basically outlined step by step so i just wanna know what i should start with

Answer 1

You've made a very good start by decomposing the problem, identifying the kind of components you need and focusing on (an important) one that you don't know how to do.

The IMDB API is documented here and you can see that it amounts to sending simple HTTP requests with some paramters and getting back some formatted data, possibly as a JSON string.

You will find libraries to help with doing those two things. Even if there are public domain wrappers for accessing IMDB I'd recommend attempting to use general purpose HTTP and JSON libraries - that's probably a better educational exercise.

Answer 2

Hi,

I'm the author of the IMDB API you are dicussing ;) I limit requests to 30 per hour to stop people hammering. I have yet to have a legitimate reason to perform more requests than that. My suggestion to anyone is to write a batch script to perform 1 request every 2minutes and then leave it going for a few hours overnight. Then you only have to perform a request on demand whenever you add a new movie.