Discogs.com API Assembly for .NET Applications v1.0 Build 2871
12 November 2007Greetings Everyone!
I’ve been working on the Discogs.com API Assembly for .NET Applications now for a couple days and have been able to make some progress. It’s now a bit more stable as well a a tiny bit easier to use.
I took some time and added a DEBUG class. This class allows you to find out what’s happening within the Discogs.com Assembly if you start to have issues! 
This new class has two properties:
- Verbose (bool) - If set to TRUE, Verbose logging will be enabled allowing you to get more precise detail on what is going on within the Assembly. Otherwise, only exceptions will be logged.
- Log (string) - This is a string containing the current debug log.
Also, it has one Method:
- LogEvent (string sEvent) - Logs the value passed in to the debug log. This way you can use the same debug log from your own applications Should help make things a little easier.
New in this version as well is better error handling in the event of 404’s or an Artist/Release isn’t found. Before if you requested something that didn’t exist, the Assembly kinda crapped out while trying to deserialize the (non-existent) XML This has all been fixed.
I’m also including a small example program (with source code) on how to use the Discogs.com API Assembly. I’ve coded the example in C#, so sorry to all those VB.NET developers out there! If one of you guys would like to translate it to VB.NET, I’d be more than happy to post it here as well.
If you do not already have Microsoft Visual Studio installed, no worries! Microsoft provides a free version for C# development called Visual C# Express and you can get it here over at Microsoft.com.
You will need to update the Reference to the Discogs.com API Assembly. It currently points to where I had it setup on my local machine.
Any and all feedback is appreciated!
Cheers!
Discogs.com API Assembly for .NET Applications v1.0 Build 2871 - Download (9k)
Discogs.com API Assembly Example Application (with Source) - Download (10k)
One Response to “Discogs.com API Assembly for .NET Applications v1.0 Build 2871”
November 13th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Hi!
I just downloaded your discogs-API and wrote a little example application. It looks really good to me and I’m planning to use it in my next bigger application!
There’s only one thing I couldn’t use (as you’re using it in your example app): could it be, that the image-property is missing in the release-class?
I wasn’t able to get any image out of any class. Or am I doing something wrong? The rest worked very well for me!
And another question:
On the discogs-API-documentation they mention, that one has to provide an api-key for each search request.
In your API I didn’t find a way to provide my own api-key (so I guess, you hard-wired your key into your code, right?). Perhaps it would be better to give the opportunity to use own api-keys (because they’re limited to 5000 requests per day, and hey, your api could beat that, if it gets more famous! :-)).
Hope you understand my english!
Keep up the good work!
Cheers, Krasher
November 13th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Hello Krasher!
The images for a Release are store in an array of Discogs.ReponseClasses.ReleaseRequest.image objects. If you download the example application in this post, you can use the code from line 80:
oResp.release.images[0].uri;
Also, regarding the API key. I embedded it in the Assembly so everyone who wishes to use the Assembly doesn’t have to sign up for their own license. The actual restriction on daily use is 5,000 requests per day, PER IP.
I doubt any single person would hit this limit.
But, because of your suggestion I will build the option into the next version to list a config setting for the API key within the host application’s app.config file. This way, people like yourself would be able to utilize your own API key.