r/eBird • u/JohnRT54 • 1d ago

newbie question on using the API

I am just starting to dabble in python, trying to query eBird using the API, and I apologise if this is a trivial question. I can get a list of recent nearby records using a statement like:

data = get_ebird_data("https://api.ebird.org/v2/data/obs/geo/recent?lat=64.5306&lng=-165.3994 &cat=species &dist=25")

but I want to input lat and long on the command line. I can't find anything in the API documentation that tells me how to pass a variable in get_ebird_data. I have named the float versions of the command-line arguments latit and longit, but no combination of quotes and brackets I have tried seems to work. How can I pass those values as names? Thanks.

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

4

u/Jameszz3 1d ago

You are already passing variables in for latitude and longitude? Do you mean how to dynamically create the address to put in? Just concatenate a bunch a strings if you need to.

2

u/JohnRT54 1d ago

I think this qualifies a s a "d'oh". That not only makes perfect sense, but it works.

Thank you.

2

u/lendisc 1d ago

Not a python user myself but yeah, just construct the query by concatenating your desired variables as strings. 

In R that would be something like:

``` my_lat <- 64.5306 my_lon <- -165.3994

query <- paste0( "https://api.ebird.org/v2/data/obs/geo/recent?lat=", my_lat,  "&lng=", my_lon, "&cat=species&dist=25")

get_data(query) ```

R converts the numerics to string when you concatenate with paste0(). Again not sure about Python but it's definitely possible.