Archive for the ‘Util’ Category

AS3 Google Weather API lib – Updated

A while ago, I needed to integrate a weather forecast into an actionscript application I was developing.

After some initial searching, I quickly stumbled upon the yahoo weather API.
I dug into this some more and even found an AS3 library for getting the weather forecast! But then, the dissapointment came. When implementing this, you could only get a basic forecast for the current date, with a link to go to the full weather forecast. As demonstrated here.

After some more searching for the right API to suit our needs (a very basic one), I found the google weather API.
The use of the API is as follows:
1) you send a http request like the following : http://www.google.com/ig/api?weather=Paris,France&hl=fr to the API
2) you receive an XML response containing weather forecast data for the next 4 days for a given location
So actually you could say it is more like a feed than an API.

But this seemed to be exactly what I needed to get the job done.
The main problem I ran into was that the API was not officially documented, so I had to do some scraping (monitoring requests and responses with charles) to find out how it worked. And of course putting the pieces together reading several blogs / forums etc.
More unofficial documentation can be found here
Also, I never found a proper actionscript library that enables us to retreive this data. That’s why I decided to stop wasting precious time and just make it myself.

Basically all I did was create a wrapper library that does the request, gets the response and handles errors in an easy to use manner.
This resulted in a fully functional AS3 library for use in flash or flex to retreive weather forecast data from google weather.

Note: When loading the xml and images from an external source, make sure to use a proxy in order to avoid flash player security issues.
In some cases, you also need to put a crossdomain.xml on your server in order to enable your swf to acces external content.

I tried to put comments in the example as much as I could to make everything as clear as possible.
Feel free to use this library in your projects / play around with it.
If you have any remarks, additions, request, questions… just post them here.

This is the basic result, just displaying the data received from the api. Nothing less, nothing more:

UPDATE

Google made changes to the API, causing the standard images not to show anymore.
A minor fix in the GoogleWeatherService.as class solved the issue.

Changed

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public static const BASE_IMAGE_URL:String = "http://www.google.com/ig";

to

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public static const BASE_IMAGE_URL:String = "http://www.google.com";

View the new example here
Or download the SWC and source files with the above usage example here: AS3 Google Weather lib (1267)

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43 Comments


AS3 unit conversion util class

As I was developing an application, I needed to convert degrees celcius to fahrenheit and vice versa,
as well as mph to kph and vice versa.

I figured the best way to implement this was in a util class because these calculations aren’t likely to change any time soon
After some googling for a class like this, i didn’t find something alike.

So that’s why I decided to write my own and of course share it with you. I tried to put in the most commonly used conversions.

This class enables you to convert:
- miles to kilometers, kilometers to miles
- celsius to fahrenheit, fahrenheit to celsius
- meters to feet, feet to meters
- … and many more

This is the result:

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/**
* ...
* @author Dennis Jaamann
* @version 1.0
* Util Class that converts units from one given unit to another
* 
* 
Copyright (c) 2009 Dennis Jaamann
 
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.
*/
package com.dj.util
{
	public class UnitConverter
	{
		/**
		 * Length
		 */
		public static function kilometersToMiles(kilometers:Number):Number{
			return kilometers * 0.621371192;
		}
 
		public static function kilometersToNauticalMiles(kilometers:Number):Number{
			return kilometers * 0.539956803;
		}
 
		public static function milesToKilometers(miles:Number):Number{
			return miles * 1.609344;
		}
 
		public static function milesToNauticalMiles(miles:Number):Number{
			return miles * 0.868976242; 
		}
 
		public static function nauticalMilesToKilometers(nauticalMiles:Number):Number{
			return nauticalMiles * 1.85200;
		}
 
		public static function nauticalMilesToMiles(nauticalMiles:Number):Number{
			return nauticalMiles * 1.15077945;
		}
 
		public static function metersToFeet(meters:Number):Number{
			return meters * 3.2808399;
		}
 
		public static function feetToMeters(feet:Number):Number{
			return feet * 0.3048;
		}
 
		public static function metersToYards(meters:Number):Number{
			return meters * 1.0936133;
		}
 
		public static function yardsToMeters(yards:Number):Number{
			return yards * 0.9144;
		}
 
		public static function centimetersToInches(centimeters:Number):Number{
			return centimeters * 0.393700787;
		}
 
		public static function inchesToCentimeters(inches:Number):Number{
			return inches * 2.54;
		}
 
		/**
		 * Temperature
		 */  
		public static function fahrenheitToCelsius(degrees:Number):Number{
			return (degrees - 32) / 1.8;			
		}
 
		public static function fahrenheitToKelvin(degrees:Number):Number{
			return (degrees + 459.67) / 1.8;
		}
 
		public static function celsiusToFahrenheit(degrees:Number):Number{
			return (degrees * 1.8) + 32;
		}
 
		public static function celsiusToKelvin(degrees:Number):Number{
			return degrees + 273.15;
		}
 
		public static function kelvinToCelsius(degrees:Number):Number{
			return degrees - 273.15;
		}
 
		public static function kelvinToFahrenheit(degrees:Number):Number{
			return (degrees * 1.8) - 459.67;
		}
 
		/**
		 * Weight
		 */ 
		public static function kilogramsToPounds(kilograms:Number):Number{
			return kilograms * 2.20462262;
		}
 
		public static function kilogramsToStone(kilograms:Number):Number{
			return kilograms * 0.157473044;
		}
 
		public static function poundsToKilograms(pounds:Number):Number{
			return pounds * 0.45359237;
		}
 
		public static function poundsToStone(pounds:Number):Number{
			return pounds * 0.0714285714;
		}
 
		public static function stoneToPounds(stone:Number):Number{
			return stone * 14;
		}
 
		public static function stoneToKilograms(stone:Number):Number{
			return stone * 6.35029318;
		}
 
		public static function gramsToOunces(grams:Number):Number{
			return grams * 0.0352739619;
		}
 
		public static function ouncesToGrams(ounces:Number):Number{
			return ounces * 28.3495231;
		}
 
		/**
		 * Speed
		 */
		public static function kilometersPerHourToKnots(kilometersPerHour:Number):Number{
			return kilometersPerHour * 0.539956803; 
		}
 
		public static function kilometersPerHourToMilesPerHour(kilometersPerHour:Number):Number{
			return kilometersPerHour * 0.621371192;
		}
 
		public static function milesPerHourToKnots(milesPerHour:Number):Number{
			return milesPerHour * 0.868976242; 
		}
 
		public static function milesPerHourToKilometersPerHour(milesPerHour:Number):Number{
			return milesPerHour * 1.609344;
		} 
 
		public static function knotsToKilometersPerHour(knots:Number):Number{
			return knots * 1.85200;
		}
 
		public static function knotsToMilesPerHour(knots:Number):Number{
			return knots * 1.15077945;
		}
 
		/**
		 * Volume
		 */ 
		public static function litersToGallons(liters:Number):Number{
			return liters * 0.264172052;
		}
 
		public static function gallonsToLiters(gallons:Number):Number{
			return gallons * 3.78541178;
		}
 
		public static function cubicFeetToCubicMeters(cubicFeet:Number):Number{
			return cubicFeet * 0.0283168466;
		}
 
		public static function cubicMetersToCubicFeet(cubicMeters:Number):Number{
			return cubicMeters * 35.3146667;
		}
 
		/**
		 * Power
		 */
		 public static function kilowattsToHorsepower(kilowatts:Number):Number{
		 	return kilowatts * 1.34102209;
		 }
 
		 public static function horsepowerToKilowatts(horsepower:Number):Number{
		 	return horsepower * 0.745699872;
		 } 
	}
}

Usage:

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package
{
	public class SomeClass
	{
		public function SomeClass()
		{
			var kph:Number = UnitConverter.milesPerHourToKilometersPerHour(10);
			trace("10 miles per hour = " + kph + " kilometers per hour");
		}
 
	}
}

Copy text or download source: unitconverter (534)

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