Mothra email address and Kerberos ID lookup API - Developer's Guide - DRAFT

In this Section

Overview

These APIs provide the ability to look up an email address and kerberos ID by employee ID. If you need assistance with this APIs, please email middleware-api@ucdavis.edu.

Audience

This documentation is intended for those wishing to look up email addresses and kerberos IDs via the REST with JSON interface.This is currently the only interface available for this API. If you would like to see an XML interface please email middleware-api@ucdavis.edu.

Application requirements

Each request must provide a valid application key. You may sign up for your own application key here <INSERT LINK>.

During periods of peak usage, API requests may be throttled.

Using the JSON interface

The easiest way to start learning about this interface is to try it out. This section shows how to use the curl command line tool to execute sample queries.

Sample JSON Request

curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" https://iet-ws.ucdavis.edu/api/mothra/EAK/v1.0/111111111?key=JPO3Dkljsd3Skjkdxxo3SJK00

curl -i -H "Accept: application/json" https://iet-ws.ucdavis.edu/api/mothra/EAK/v1.0/jsmith?key=JPO3Dkljsd3Skjkdxxo3SJK00&type=loginid

These commands perform a lookup of an email address and kerberos ID by employee ID (in the first line), or by loginid (in the second line). The response has a Content-Type of text/javascript.

Sample JSON Response

{
  "responseDetails":null,
  "responseStatus":0,
  "email":"fakeaddress@ms1.ucdavis.edu",
  "kerberosID":"fakeloginid",
  "eid":"111111111"
}

JSON reference

The JSON interface is exposed through a uniform URL that contains CGI arguments. Your application can use an HTTP stack of its choosing. In order to use the JSON interface:

You must construct a properly formatted URL with all necessary CGI arguments.
You must send an HTTP referer header that accurately identifies your application.
You must process the JSON-encoded response.

Request format

URL base address

The standard URL for the Email and Kerberos Lookup API is:

https://iet-ws.ucdavis.edu/api/mothra/EAK/v1.0

URL arguments

This section describes the arguments that can be used for lookup requests.

The value of a CGI argument must always be properly escaped. This can be done via the functional equivalent of JavaScript's encodeURIComponent() method.

Required URL arguments

The following table lists the required URL arguments.

Argument	Example	Description
key	key=your-key	This argument supplies the application's key. You can sign up for an API key <INSERT LINK HERE>. It must be a valid key associated with your application. The key is required for this API to implement quality of service rules for this API. If your application is making too many requests it will be throttled to ensure resources are not overloaded during times of peak usage. Also, by supplying a key we can identify and contact you should something go wrong with your application.
type	type=loginid	The type argument should either be left off entirely, or set as 'type=loginid', to specify that instead of an employeeid, you're passing in a loginid.

Response format

Each response follow this general format:

{
  "responseDetails" : null | "string",
  "responseStatus" : 0 | non-zero integer,
  "email":"string",
  "kerberosID":"string",
  "eid":"string"
}

Guaranteed response fields

The result set always contains the parameters listed in this section, even if the value is empty.

Property	Description
responseDetails	Either null, or some other double quote-enclosed string containing an error message
responseStatus	0 (zero) on success, or a non-zero number on error
email	The personal email address corresponding to the employeeid given
kerberosID	The personal kerberos ID corresponding to the employeeid given
eid	The employee ID passed in

Trouble shooting

If you encounter problems with your code:

Make sure your API key is valid.
Look for typos. Remember that JavaScript is a case-sensitive language.
Use a JavaScript debugger. In Firefox, you can use the JavaScript console or the Firebug. In IE, you can use the Microsoft Script Debugger.
If you need to examine the JSON string returned from the server, you can use JSON Lint to make a single, long string human readable.
Email middleware-api@ucdavis.edu with a description of your problem and a trace of the request and response.