Demo file: json-currencyapi.com.v2.zip
This is a quick follow up to a pair of articles I published earlier this year, and will assume the reader is familiar with that material.
Having first blogged about this back in 2020, I had hoped to be finished with this topic, not because it isn’t interesting (it is) or because getting comfortable working with APIs isn’t fun, educational, and potentially profitable (ditto), but because I didn’t really have much left to say on the subject. Unfortunately, for the third or fourth time now, the API my demo was based on stopped working after the service provider was purchased by another company with the aim of monetizing the formerly-free service.
But being endlessly gullible optimistic, I’m going to give it one more shot. Obviously this could change tomorrow, but as things stand right now, it appears that the service offering the most generous free tier is CurrencyAPI.com (and I looked at a bunch of them), so if you are interested enough to download today’s demo, you’ll want to sign up for a free API key…
…enter that key into the demo, and click “[re-initialize]” or restart before proceeding.
In addition to monetary currencies, CurrencyAPI tracks rates for a number of crypto-currencies as well. Their documentation is clear and extensive, and their request playground is a great place to test queries out, but be aware that playground activity does count towards your quota.
So what’s different in today’s demo? Just a few things actually…
- You can click the “[refresh]” button to pull down the current set of currencies, but be aware this will count against your quota.
- Choosing no currencies is the same as choosing all of them.
- The default base currency (i.e., if not specified) is now USD rather than EUR.
- Date range queries are not available in the free tier, so queries are restricted to a single date.
- Standard Notation checkbox transforms JSON via auto-enter calc.
As of this writing, the free tier allows up to 300 queries per month, and you can click the Status button to see where you’re at (checking status does not affect your quota) — you can also check on this via the CurrencyAPI dashboard.
There’s more I could say, but you’ll find it in the two above-referenced articles. And I think that’s enough for today.